Discover more at Oakhurst Cottage
Find out when Oakhurst Cottage is open, how to get here, the things to see and do and more.
Explore Oakhurst Cottage and Garden
At the end of 2014, Oakhurst went through extensive renovation work. Today the cottage is dressed to show rural English life in the 19th century. Here are a few of the highlights you'll come across on your guided tour of Oakhurst Cottage. It's a rare glimpse into village life from many hundreds of years ago.
Meet Oakhurst Cottage
Until the start of the last century this cottage was anonymous in all but name. It represented a type of building and way of life that had changed very little for generations, and few in rural Surrey would have paid it any attention at all.
Today the cottage provides a rare glimpse into a bygone era.
The living room
Sometimes called the front kitchen, this room with its hearth was centre of cottage home life. The concentration of the equipment in and around the fireside reflects its importance. Most of the cooking apparatus here comes from Gertrude Jekyll’s own collection which she left to the Surrey Archaeological Society.
The bedrooms
The bedrooms have been furnished with typical wooden bed-stocks and other items from the 17th century. Beds were warmed with copper warming pans or stoneware bottles filled with hot water. Quilting was popular within the rural classes as it mean something beautiful could be made from small, scraps of fabric.
Restoring Oakhurst's garden
Over the past few years, we've been working to restore the small garden to its former glory in the traditional style.
You'll see a variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers, along with annuals like sunflowers, which we planted to reflect contemporary paintings of the cottage such as those by Helen Allingham.
The barn
There is a small barn at the edge of the garden, adjacent to the privy. This outhouse was used right up until the end of the cottage's life, helping keep Hambledon's last nightsoil man in work until 1984.
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