The house
A harbour master's house, put back together in lime.
Merecombe was built in 1904 and spent sixty years as flats before we found it. We run it as the kind of place we wanted to stay in: small, warm, open all year, and five minutes from the sea.
112 years in four lines
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1904
Built for the harbour master, on the one spot where both the harbour and the open sea are in view.
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1962
Divided into flats. The lime walls are painted over and the cellar is bricked up.
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2014
We buy it with a leaking roof, a garden full of brambles and the lime still sound under the paint.
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2016
Eight rooms open after two winters of work. The cellar becomes the bathhouse.
Why lime
Walls that breathe by the sea
Lime lets damp move through a wall instead of trapping it, which is why the old coastal houses that kept it still stand straight. Every wall here is lime: washed in the bedrooms, burnished and waterproof in the bathrooms and the bathhouse.
Who you will meet
Eleven people run the house
Most of us live within three miles. These three you will see most.
Esther H.
Owner, front of house
Grew up two coves along. Knows every tide time by heart.
Dan M.
Owner, kitchen
Cooked in London for twelve years and came home to write one menu a day.
Rosa K.
Plasterer
Keeps the lime. Re-washes every bedroom every third winter.
Looking after this bit of coast
Heat from an air-source pump and solar on the barn roof. No single-use plastic in the rooms. Food from within ten miles wherever it grows. Guests who arrive by train get 10% off their room.
Come and see it for yourself
Eight rooms, all year round. Most weekends book up six weeks ahead; midweek there is almost always a room.