The views across the Downs were also said to have inspired much of his poetry, and indeed his ashes were scattered nearby on Bury Hill in 1933.”I, in no grave be confined, mingle my dust with the dust,” he wrote, as a last poetic request.Twenty-first century occupants might just feel similarly inspired. They start at £395,000, rising to just under £600,000 for the largest suite, while the individual cottages are priced at £450,000.Andrea Davies, manager of Henry Adams & Partners in Pulborough, the joint agent with Cluttons on the property, says: “Sussex is very low-beamed. You just don’t get Victorian or Georgian properties down here with wonderful high ceilings like this. The open plan living area in one of the suites was actually the drawing room of the original house,” says Street.The apartment conversions are on each of the three floors, with a lift for access to the upper levels , which increases the appeal for possible retirement property hunters.The biggest apartment is the ground floor Coombe suite (each suite is named after a local village, including Amberley and Houghton), which has an enormous drawing room measuring 24ft by 22ft.The Bury suite, also on the ground floor, boasts a living area constructed from Galsworthy’s original drawing room and has a fabulous fireplace with carved stone pilasters. The room is of similar dimensions to the Coombe suite, but it also has an open plan kitchen bolted on, creating a sociable and modern living space that works surprisingly well in its period shell.The Norchester Partnership has also cunningly added two totally new-build cottages in the grounds of Bury House, built in traditional style like coach houses so well that they convince as period properties.Prices are surprisingly keen for what is luxury accommodation set in beautiful countryside within easy reach of Gatwick airport – and only just over an hour by train from London. The Norchester Partnership’s first task was to remove all the partitioning and get the building back to how it was originally.”After that we knocked a few things down but we just created a big footprint of the rooms that were the original design.

Irene and Soames would not have looked out of place in these surroundings.Paul Street, the managing partner of The Norchester Partnership, the Chichester-based developer specializing in period conversions which transformed Bury House, comments: “It was important to retain the integrity of the original building both for the building itself and the finished article, but it lent itself well for conversion because it is symmetrical.”It also faces south so it has lots of fabulous views from all of the windows.”When it was acquired, Bury House had been a nursing home for many years. The owners, firstly West Sussex County Council and then a private partnership, had brutally subdivided it into numerous separate bedrooms and installed exterior drainage pipes running across the mellow stonework. The stone roof, too, needed serious attention.”It was very run down because the two previous owners had rather different agendas to maintaining a listed building. It needed a lot of restoration work,” says Street, pointedly.The result is an impressive combination of the old and the new. In 1967, long before the advent of multi-channel television, much of the nation was gripped every Sunday evening for 26 weeks by the feuds and dramas of the aristocratic Forsyte family and their London merchant’s business. With its high production values and star names, including Kenneth More, Michael York, Eric Porter and Nyree Dawn Porter, the BBC serial drama The Forsyte Saga was the Dallas of its day, a sort of fancy soap opera in posh period frocks.

Over the years, I have got rid of most of my “valuables” and live an austere and simple life, rather like a monk.The things that matter to me now are those of sentimental value, which hold memories. They are my treasures.Shusha Guppy’s book ‘The Secret of Laughter: Magical Tales from Classical Persia’, is published by IB Tauris (£19.95). It comes from Tula in Russia, where they are said to make the finest samovars. I also have a lamp of hers that was made in Bohemia and is decorated with a portrait of a 19th-century shah.I like this room, especially for the balcony which overlooks the street, and the little terrace on the other side of the building. Although they are quite small, I have created my own Persian gardens, with camellias, roses, honeysuckle, clematis, scented geraniums and jasmine. The balcony is fairly enclosed, and I love sitting there, especially on moonlit summer nights.For writers and artists, it is the life within that counts One doesn’t need very much. However, I do care about cleanliness and order – I’m awfully tidy.

Although he has spent his adult life in Paris, Nasser is regarded as Persia’s greatest living painter, and he painted this portrait when he was only 19.Another treasured possession is my mother’s wedding samovar, which was part of her dowry when she married in the 1920’s. I play the guitar though, and sometimes I sing at benefit concerts.The sitting room is rather colourful, with two walls painted in deep red, which is a good background colour for pictures and ornaments.Above the sofa is a portrait of my father, painted by my brother, Nasser Assar. I have a study next door, but I prefer to work sitting on my bed, with cushions, and with my computer on my lap.This is where I spend most of my day. There is a shelf for poetry books, and I keep my guitar close by. I know several languages – English, French and Persian are my “mother tongues”, and Spanish and Italian I have picked up in later years – I have a whole shelf of dictionaries that I use all the time. I do a lot of reviewing and so I accumulate vast numbers of books, most of which I give to charity, but some I keep.Music has always been an essential part of my life – not only when I worked as a singer/songwriter – and I listen to classical music while I write I have a piano in the sitting room, but it is rarely used. My first son was born in 1964 and spent his earliest days in a baby chair on the tiny balcony, surrounded by plants.

In 1965, my second son arrived, and a year later we moved into this house.In those days, Chelsea was more like a village, full of impecunious writers and artists Now, of course, it’s very different. If I could choose again now, I would live somewhere further out, like Bayswater, or possibly Shepherd’s Bush. Those areas are more neighbourly, and I prefer that to the modern monstrosity that inner London has become.My home consists of two floors; with a bedroom, a study, a bathroom, and a lovely bright room above The bedroom is very simple. There is a television, but I only watch the news and good documentaries. We moved into a little flat on the sixth floor of a block, overlooking Albert Bridge. When you leave the country of your birth, you never really have a “home” again.