There’s something rather magical about a forgotten property that has been brought back to life – or indeed given a completely new one – but perhaps none more so than St John in Rye.
The red brick building, which sits, quite inconspicuously, in a courtyard off Conduit Street, one of Rye’s hilly cobbled lanes just steps from the quaint harbour town’s bustling High Street, was once a St John Ambulance station. The neighbouring Georgian building served as a regional headquarters for the charity, while the twin-pitched ‘garage’ was used to station two ambulances.
However, the station building fell into a state of disrepair having sat empty and unused for a number of years, until it caught the eye of the award-winning interior architect Marta Norwicka in 2012.
The mother-of-one had previously bought and restored a former coastguard’s cottage, right on the beach at Jury’s Gap at Camber Sands but found the winter months harsh and isolating so had been looking for a home closer to Rye’s creative
