Moving here was the best thing we ever did,” the late Denis Healey often declared while surveying the magnificent South Downs views from Pingles Place, his elevated eyrie overlooking the picturesque village of Alfriston in the Sussex Weald.
As with so many things, he had his wife, Edna, to thank for finding their “earthly paradise”. It was she who scoured the Sussex countryside for six months while Healey, then chancellor in James Callaghan’s Labour government, managed the nation’s purse strings. They were looking for somewhere further inland, but were seduced by the secluded position, spectacular views, eight acres of mature gardens and generous space for Healey’s expanding library.
They purchased the house for about £63,000 in 1977 with the proceeds from their Highgate home, and remained there for several decades, although the splendour of their pastoral idyll occasionally raised eyebrows (though none as bushy as Healey’s famous pair).
When the political film-maker Michael Cockerell interviewed Healey in the grounds of his home in 1989, he suggested that some on the left might question why one of their own was living in a place as grand as Pingles. Healey brushed the remark aside, while Edna loyally observed that if a former chancellor couldn’t aspire to live in a decent house at the end of his career, then what hope was there for the rest of us?
Sadly, their bucolic existence came to an end with Lady Healey’s death, at the age of 92, in 2010, followed by Lord Healey’s, at 98, in October last year, and now their three children, Jenny, Tim and Cressida, have reluctantly decided to sell up.
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“They both asked if we’d live here when they were gone, but we’d always point out that we couldn’t afford it,” says Jenny, cradling a mug of tea in her parents’ sunlit kitchen. “While I love it here, it just isn’t the same without Mum and Dad.”
Pingles Place was designed and built in 1933 by the Seaford-based architect Alwyn Underdown, who borrowed from the Arts and Crafts vernacular. The redbrick exterior, punctuated by tall chimneys and a steeply pitched, clay-tiled roof, is markedly restrained, although the house originally benefited from leaded casement windows, which Edna had removed because they obscured her views.
The interior has a solid, craftsman-like feel, chiefly characterised by exposed ceiling timbers. These, like many of the magnificent stone fireplaces, were reclaimed from older houses — Underdown is known to have salvaged materials from a demolished Tudor mansion called Laughton Place, near Lewes.
The architect may have been a dab hand at recycling, but he skimped on little else. The panelled oak doors are pleasingly arched, the ground floors lavished with flagstones or wood-block, and the fireplaces decorated with herringbone bricks or Delft tiles. With the exception of the windows, the Healeys honoured and preserved the architect’s intentions, right down to the original radiators, japanned metal light switches and servants’ hatch and bells in the scullery.
“Dad was still chancellor when they moved in, so everything had to be wired up for security, and the police swept up the drive several times a day,” Jenny says. “When my daughter was a baby, her screams frequently set off the alarms, so we’d be having a whale of a time when suddenly several officers would pitch up at the door. I later discovered there were a couple of serious scares, prompted by suspected IRA activity in nearby Cuckmere Haven.”
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Jenny’s parents, who met at Oxford in the late 1930s, were a devoted couple, though she fondly acknowledges her father wasn’t an easy companion. “Mum loved him, but he was infuriating — largely because he didn’t care what people thought. Mum’s classic line was always, ‘Denis, don’t!’ because he’d pull silly faces, take his false teeth out and balance them on his nose.
“He turned up at the World Economic Forum in Davos in a pair of black trainers after forgetting to pack leather shoes. He blacked out the white stripes with a felt-tip pen. Apparently, Prince Charles remarked that they looked very comfy.”
Edna, an acclaimed biographer, “was indefatigable. One minute she’d be digging the garden, the next cleaning herself up and dashing off to Glyndebourne. But Dad always came first. If he needed something, she’d drop her writing and attend to it.”
Jenny, a retired teacher, had flown the nest by the time her parents acquired the house, but fondly remembers family gatherings on high days and holidays. “Hysterical laughter, Dad as the centrepiece with Mum scolding him in the background, and no mention of politics,” she reminisces. “But it’s our children who have the fondest memories — of Easter egg hunts, secret camps and water slides in the pool — and they are saddest about no more Pingles.”
We begin our tour in the kitchen, which, with the adjoining scullery and laundry room, originally formed the servants’ wing. This is the room most in need of modernisation, although it’s sad to think the original oak units, preserved for more than 80 years, are unlikely to meet modern requirements. The Healeys’ racing-green Aga takes up an entire wall.
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“The kitchen was the hub of the home and Mum enjoyed cooking,” Jenny says. “Even when she was hampered by arthritis, she would still be struggling to get some large bird out of the oven while Dad sat at the table, his head in the paper, oblivious to everything.”
Her mother was also a passionate gardener. “She had large areas of the garden landscaped, introduced plants to encourage wildlife and purchased an adjoining field to ensure an uninterrupted view to the sea. The top lawn presents a constantly changing vista: snowdrops, primroses and cowslips in early spring are succeeded by wild orchids and then moon daisies in high summer.”
The couple loved to share Pingles, and guests were usually received in the drawing room, accessed via an imposing reception hall. One wall is devoted to some of Healey’s vast library, where his prized poetry collection takes precedence (Wordsworth, WB Yeats and Emily Dickinson were favourites). Gradually, his books — some 60,000 volumes — are being siphoned off to a local bookshop.
“Dad was sociable, but under his own terms, and was often happiest reading or listening to music,” Jenny says. Healey’s grand piano, where he enjoyed playing Chopin waltzes, now stands silent.
“In later life, he became a telly addict — 24-hour news, arts documentaries and sitcoms like the Vicar of Dibley were his thing.”
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The Healeys’ only addition to the house was the conservatory overlooking the swimming pool, where Healey boasted he swam 20 lengths a day well into his nineties.
Downstairs rooms, including the dining room, sitting room and Edna’s former study, are dotted with antique furniture and objets d’art, much of it gathered at Harrods auctions. Pieces tell of the couple’s illustrious connections: a trinket box given by the Sheikh of Oman; a glass tankard presented by the Variety Club of Great Britain; two chairs designed by the Earl of Snowdon for the Prince of Wales’s Investiture.
It’s the same story upstairs in Healey’s study. A Staffordshire character mug of Margaret Thatcher occupies a prominent position (Healey christened her Attila the Hen), but a naive wooden toy made by a child was also a firm favourite — its Healeyesque eyebrows fly up hypnotically when you pull a string.
“Every surface was usually covered with cuttings from his daily trawl of the newspapers — everything from the oil crisis to Kylie Minogue. We’re hoping the Bodleian Library will take his papers and some of his photographic slides,” Jenny says.
The study, with its adjoining dressing room and bathroom, is listed as the master bedroom, although the Healeys bagged the large bedroom and ensuite bathroom at the end of the gallery, with its breathtaking views over the snaking Cuckmere Haven. There are seven bedrooms in total, and a shared bathroom and separate shower room (though both need modernising). Two attic rooms also offer potential.
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Healey was devastated when his wife died shortly after their 65th wedding anniversary, but soldiered on “as he always did”. “He mellowed and became half as difficult, and we all said Mum was influencing him,” Jenny says.
When he, in turn, died after a brief illness, he was ready to go. “He was sure he’d make 100 and would drink the first sparkling wine from the neighbouring 400-acre Rathfinny Estate, but it was not to be.”
It seems fitting that he died in his beloved home, surrounded by mementos of a life well lived. “Mum and Dad loved Pingles. They’d sit on their favourite garden seat, overlooking the Downs, and say, ‘AWL’, shorthand for ‘Aren’t we lucky!’”
Pingles Place is on the market at £1.9m through Strutt & Parker; 01273 475411, struttandparker.com