To ask you to help me recall a memory

[user1471451355]

Hi all! Posting here for traffic. Sorry my username isn't a bit more scintillating.
I'm from the States, but back in 2004 my parents and I spent some time in and around London. We stayed at the most lovely bed and breakfast, and I would dearly love to find it online and show pictures to my DH, but neither of my parents seem to be able to remember so much as the name of the area we were in. I was only about ten years old, but I have some of the happiest memories of that trip.

Here is what I do remember! It was a very large, very old house. At least it seemed very old to me as a child, though I do seem to remember hearing the owner talk about its history. I remember being very impressed by its size and grandeur! It was owned by a woman. I believe she had a husband and children as well but I never saw them. Her elderly mother lived there also. It seemed like it was quite a long drive from where we got off the ferry after crossing the Channel. It wasn't terribly far from London, but far enough that we only stayed there a few nights to recover from jet lag before proceeding to a hotel from which we went back and forth to London. I think it was probably quite a standard village; I remember stone houses, horseback riders, children in school uniforms, etc all of which were of course quite novel to me!

I realize this is barely any information whatsoever, it certainly hasn't been enough for me to turn anything up via Google. Even though it's a long shot I am so hoping it rings a bell for someone! We had disposable cameras along but only a few blurry pictures were taken, though I can see it all clearly in my mind, and I'd love to revisit those memories with a bit more information.

[DoreenLethal]

There is no way Sittingbourne is that town!

I suspect a trip to Rochester on the way happened and that's what your memory is.

I knew it wouldn't be far off the M2

[Lookdownthesofa]

Just realised i'm about 40 minuteso too late and OP has solved the mystery

[LurksNoLonger]

Well I am pleased you solved your mystery even if we never worked out where the cobbled streets and tartan uniforms were seen 😃 Have to say though have lived in Kent all my life (well actually have been in Middle East for past 3 but I still return for several months a year) and I never, ever would have guessed Hartlip - never seen that place before and I thought I'd been to or through most villages in the county! Top detective work 😃😃😃

[CitizenBloom]

You said your parents were 'on an adoption trip to Eastern Europe', but given that you all promptly headed in the opposite direction to Eastern Europe after presumably landing at Schiphol, it wasn't clear whether this was before or after you went to meet your new sibling. OK, it would seem like a deeply bizarre decision to go on a roadtrip with a newly adopted child, but it also seems more than a bit eccentric if you're heading east to nip down to Nice and over to London on the way.

[user1471451355]

CitizenBloom - my parents are utterly eccentric! Can't deny that haha. We always had so much fun together though. I asked my mom today what possessed them and apparently it just seemed like a fun thing to do as we would be overseas anyways. Eccentric or not, I hope my DC look back on our family adventures with as much fondness as I do.

[fourquenelles]

Thank goodness. This is no Victorian safe thread Well done OP, OP's slightly bonkers parents and the Mumsnet sleuths!

[WestEnd123]

Rye fits with your description of the cobbled streets, it's lovely and old fashioned, like going back in time! Otherwise Paddock Wood or Tonbridge? Both are close to London.

[DesolateWaist]

Thank goodness. This is no Victorian safe thread

Well now I've lost The Game.

[WestEnd123]

Whoops, just seen that's the mystery's been solved! Glad you know now. I'm like this. I'm in my mid 40's, and memories of childhood holidays are sometimes more vivid than my memories of many adult ones!

[Skiver123]

Could it be in the Cotswolds or in the villages around the Bath area?

[user1471451355]

Coconutty - was home educated! We considered it a very odd and extensive field trip

[Caipora]

I know we get our transatlantic wires crossed a lot but I always thought gray and grey were the same colour, it's a beautiful b&b but grey, it ain't
Glad you solved the mystery.

[FruVikingessOla]

Caipora. I wonder if the house had been painted gray/grey back in 2004 when the OP was there - but the owners have since restored it to its former, brick, splendour?

[tiffanysfanny]

It would be nice to still see the pictures though

[FruVikingessOla]

I agree, tiffany!

[NoahVale]

amazing you found it,
really pleased for you op

[DesolateWaist]

I always thought gray and grey were the same colour

They are, one is just the American spelling.

[Caipora]

I was pulling the OP's leg, I know they are but maybe FruVikingessOla is right. They had the paint blasted from the building.

[user1471451355]

Not sure what this is a picture of! Parents say it was taken that day though.

[user1471451355]

Here is the only picture taken inside the B&B! The rest of the pictures are of things we saw in London.

And I also have a correction on our trip schedule; relatives happened to be in Reims that week and we met them there, not in Nice.

[StStrattersOfMN]

grAy - American
grEy - English

[FruVikingessOla]

I think that exterior photo must be of somewhere else? Maybe the photo was really to feature the Christmas tree? The house in the background is three storeys, judging by the windows (ground, first and second), whereas the photo of the house 'Hartlip Place' website is only two storeys (ground and first).

It's all fascinating though!

[Sleeplessinmybedroom]

Glad you found it.

[user1471451355]

FruVikingessOla - you can get an idea here of my parents photography skills. None of the pictures were ever labeled or anything either.