A florist and cider maker's idyllic life in a 17th-century Sussex cottage

In an idyllic corner of Sussex, Milli Proust and Ted Dwane are pursuing their twin passions of floristry and cider making, growing their own cut flowers and apples in several meadows around their 17th-century cottage

By Clare Foster

8 September 2023

Eva Nemeth

A few miles from Petworth in West Sussex, there is an area of hilly woodland that is still delightfully unspoilt and relatively underpopulated. In the early 1900s, this charming, rural backwater became an enclave for artists who were looking to escape the London fray. Rex Vicat Cole, known particularly for his paintings of trees, rented a cottage here for many years, also subletting it to Edward Elgar for four years, during which time the composer wrote his Cello Concerto in E Minor.

It was the same desire to leave city life behind that led Milli Proust and Ted Dwane to move here in 2017. As a member of folk-rock band Mumford & Sons, Ted was living a hectic London-based life and had begun to feel the pull of his childhood home in Sussex. Similarly, Milli was working as an archivist in London but growing flowers in her shared flat and longing for more space. When they first saw their magical, early-17th-century cottage, they fell for it instantaneously. ‘I had literally dreamed of this house,’ says Milli. ‘As a child, I had nightmares and was encouraged to do visualisations to calm me down before going to sleep. In my mind, I used to create a field with a tiny house that had a wooden staircase and, when I got here, I knew it was exactly the place I had imagined.’

Cocooned by 10 acres of fields and woodland, the twoup, two-down half-timbered cottage is straight out of the pages of a Grimms’ fairy tale. One of the integral timber beams on the front of the house is curved, reminiscent of a ship’s prow, and it is thought that many of the cottages in this area were built using timber from medieval ships broken up in the nearby Littlehampton shipyards. Inside, the cottage is no less quirky, with low ceilings, lime plaster walls and diamond-pane Crittall windows providing a backdrop for Milli’s dreamy flower arrangements. Through almost every window, there are views out over peaceful meadows and beyond to a ring of ancient oak woodland, where the couple walk with their baby Rex and their dogs, Jimi and Stella, most days. Since moving in, they have created half an acre or so of working garden, where Milli grows flowers for her floristry business, and have planted an orchard for Ted’s cidery. ‘It’s been a complete lifestyle change,’ says Milli. ‘The land asks a lot of us here. There’s much chopping of wood, upkeep and physical work. But we get so much back.’

Friends and family helping with the apple harvest

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It was during the pandemic that both their fledgling businesses took off: Milli’s in flowers and Ted’s in cider. On tour with Mumford & Sons, Ted had become interested in cider making along with the band’s assistant tour manager Freddie McArdle (now his business partner). ‘We were reading books about cider, learning together and getting excited about it,’ says Ted. ‘In lockdown, our tour work stopped, so we decided to go for it.’ They launched Two Orchards Cider in 2020. Specialising in champagnemethod cider, they have developed a recipe that utilises locally available eating and cooking apples from the east of England with a smaller addition of more tannic West Country fruit. Ted and Freddie have been helping various landowners look after orchards in return for the fruit.

‘Making traditional-method cider is the most elaborate thing you can do with an apple,’ explains Ted, as he shows me round the new cidery headquarters – a large barn on a nearby farm. ‘The whole process takes about three years. We use a wine press to extract the apple juice after we’ve harvested the apples in autumn. This hour-long extraction allows a lot of flavour to be leached out, leaving the harder tannins behind.’ Once the juice is in the tanks, they employ the pied de cuve method of taking yeast from ongoing successful fermentations, using it to kickstart fermentation in the freshly pressed juice. This imparts flavour and character to the finished cider. In spring, when all the tanks are fully fermented, they assemble the blend. ‘Before bottling, we initiate a new yeast starter with champagne yeast, which will run the secondary fermentation in the bottles,’ explains Ted. ‘This is what gives the cider its natural fizz.’ The cider is left to mature in the bottle for 24-36 months.

Next to Ted’s cidery is Milli’s new flower field. Having teamed up with fellow grower Paris Alma, she is expanding her business and growing more flowers so she can supply other florists as well as meet their own needs. Milli started the cut-flower business when she moved to Sussex in 2017, while she was still working part-time in London. She began to build up an Instagram following with her brilliant Windowsill Wednesday posts. Before long, friends and followers were asking her to arrange flowers for weddings and other events. ‘When the pandemic happened, it was sink or swim. I knew I had to make the flower business work,’ she says. ‘I had grown tulips for people’s weddings and, suddenly in lockdown, there were no weddings. I can remember watching all the tulips start to explode and crying in the kitchen. My grandmother was staying with us through lockdown and she came in and just held me. She was always so stoical and practical – she said people would want flowers more than ever in lockdown.’

Milli has created a cutting garden between the cottage and the meadow

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Of course, she was right, so Milli started sending out bunches of a dozen tulips through the post: ‘I did a few trial runs with my friends and then put them up on Instagram. That year, I sold every single stem that came from the garden. British flowers had a real moment in lockdown and we are still riding that wave.’ Her grandmother, a great gardener who had a passion for wildflowers, died in 2021, but she lives on in the form of a tree at the top of the meadow. ‘She wanted Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending to be played at her funeral and the larks ascended in the meadow when we planted her tree,’ says Milli.

Apart from when Ted is on tour, the couple now spend all their time in Sussex and have thrown themselves wholeheartedly into their new life. They have made the garden as sustainable as they can by putting in an elaborate rainwater harvesting system and have built what Ted calls a ‘compost palace’ to generate enough compost for the no-dig beds and for mulching the apple tree saplings. Ted keeps bees on the edge of the meadow, which help to pollinate the apple trees, and the whole place is as wildlife-friendly as possible.

Both Ted and Milli have studio spaces in outbuildings in the garden. Milli’s studio, housed in an old stable, is full of dried flowers and her own range of seeds collected from her flowers. A fabulous 1950s circus wagon, renovated by Ted’s friend Rollo Dunford Wood, has become Ted’s office and music studio. ‘Our businesses are different, but they are symbiotic,’ says Milli. ‘The new flower field is next door to the cidery, so when we are both working there, we can take Rex along with us. He’s fitting into our regime.’ Cider, flowers, bees and babies – with the occasional musical interlude. It sounds like a perfect recipe for happiness. And if they can manage to do it all without leaving this idyllic corner of West Sussex too often, they are certainly getting something right.

Alma Proust: almaproust.com | Two Orchards: twoorchards.com

Eva Nemeth
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Milli and Ted’s cottage seen from the meadow, with Ted’s circus wagon to the right. The property is surrounded by a circle of ancient oak woodland, giving it a secluded feeling
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Milli and Ted, with baby Rex and Jimi, outside their cottage
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Milli and Ted bought the table by the sitting room window at Ardingly Antiques Fair and the yellow sofa from Giovanna Ticciati
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The bathroom upstairs has the original beams and floor

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The painting was the first artwork Milli bought for herself.
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In the sitting room’s bay window.
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Whippet Jimi is one of the couple’s two dogs
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Milli with Martin Brudnizki, arranging dahlias for an event at the interior designer’s country house nearby in Sussex

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Milli in her workshop with bundles of the dried flowers she uses in winter arrangements.
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Collecting seed in her cutting garden
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One of Milli’s naturalistic floral arrangements, including Ammi majus, cosmos, Amaranthus caudatus ‘Coral Fountain’ and ‘Green Tails’, and Amaranthus cruentus ‘Hot Biscuits’

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Milli with Paris Alma, with whom she has founded Alma Proust
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The packets of seed from Milli’s range feature her botanical watercolours
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Ted inspecting bottles in a riddling rack awaiting disgorgement as part of the cider-making process.
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Honey from the bees kept on the edge of the meadow

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Ted in his studio, a 1950s circus wagon renovated by Rollo Dunford Wood
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Egremont russets are a local apple first recorded in 1872 and believed to be raised by the Earl of Egremont at Petworth House
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In the kitchen, bunches of Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ hang from the beams
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Ted and Freddie McArdle launched Two Orchards Cider in 2020, specialising in traditional, champagne-method cider