The garden at Long Barn, near Sevenoaks, Kent
The home of Lars and Rebecca Lemonius
IN February 1936, a rich young American couple drove down to Sevenoaks from London, in search of a house they were hoping to rent. Writing in her diary, published as The Flower and the Nettle: Diaries and Letters 1936–39, Anne Morrow recalled: ‘All the way down we kept saying gloomily and angrily, as though to prepare ourselves, “I don’t call this country” and “I don’t call this a little town.” “He [the owner] said it wasn’t suburbia,” and, at various houses on the road, large, ugly, and unprotected, “There it is!”
‘Finally we asked for “Long Barn” and were told “Over the brow of