Alexandra "Gully" Wells, step-daughter of the philosopher A. J. Ayer and Martin's girlfriend for about 10 years from 1969, said of Lemmons that "a more hospitable household would be impossible to imagine".
Tamasin Day-Lewis wrote:
Lemmons was full of impossibly glamorous older people and a core commune of writers, painters and inventors; even the dogs and cats shared a communal basket, and there were always stray writers and publishers whose marriages were unravelling.
The drink flowed as freely as an open artery at family dinners.

House guests included Martin's close friends Christopher Hitchens, James Fenton, Clive James and Julian Barnes, and his and Kingsley's literary agents, Tom Maschler and Pat Kavanagh.
The visitors' book also listed John Betjeman and Philip Larkin; Tina Brown and Paul Johnson; Iris Murdoch and her husband, John Bayley; Bernard Levin; John Gross, editor of the Times Literary Supplement; the novelist Jacqueline Wheldon and her husband, Huw Wheldon, the broadcaster; the historians Robert Conquest and Paul Fussell; and, for one visit, the novelist Elizabeth Bowen.

The Day-Lewises moved into Lemmons in the spring of 1972 when Tamasin's father, the poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, was dying of cancer.
The families were close: Cecil and Jane had been lovers after her first divorce, and Jane was Tamasin's godmother.
Tamasin and Martin had also started dating.
Tamasin and her brother, Daniel, and their mother, Jill Balcon, stayed at the house for five weeks, until Cecil died on 22 May. Jane wrote: "Nobody was better at getting the utmost pleasure from the simplest things as Cecil: a bunch of flowers, a toasted bun, a gramophone record ... a piece of cherry cake, a new thriller ..." He dedicated his final poem, "At Lemmons", to "Jane, Kingsley, Colin, Sargy": "I accept my weakness with my friends' / Good natures sweetening each day my sick room."
Alexandra "Gully" Wells, step-daughter of the philosopher A. J. Ayer and Martin's girlfriend for about 10 years from 1969, said of Lemmons that "a more hospitable household would be impossible to imagine". Tamasin Day-Lewis wrote:
Lemmons was full of impossibly glamorous older people and a core commune of writers, painters and inventors; even the dogs and cats shared a communal basket, and there were always stray writers and publishers whose marriages were unravelling. The drink flowed as freely as an open artery at family dinners.
House guests included Martin's close friends Christopher Hitchens, James Fenton, Clive James and Julian Barnes, and his and Kingsley's literary agents, Tom Maschler and Pat Kavanagh. The visitors' book also listed John Betjeman and Philip Larkin; Tina Brown and Paul Johnson; Iris Murdoch and her husband, John Bayley; Bernard Levin; John Gross, editor of the Times Literary Supplement; the novelist Jacqueline Wheldon and her husband, Huw Wheldon, the broadcaster; the historians Robert Conquest and Paul Fussell; and, for one visit, the novelist Elizabeth Bowen.
The Day-Lewises moved into Lemmons in the spring of 1972 when Tamasin's father, the poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, was dying of cancer. The families were close: Cecil and Jane had been lovers after her first divorce, and Jane was Tamasin's godmother. Tamasin and Martin had also started dating. Tamasin and her brother, Daniel, and their mother, Jill Balcon, stayed at the house for five weeks, until Cecil died on 22 May. Jane wrote: "Nobody was better at getting the utmost pleasure from the simplest things as Cecil: a bunch of flowers, a toasted bun, a gramophone record ... a piece of cherry cake, a new thriller ..." He dedicated his final poem, "At Lemmons", to "Jane, Kingsley, Colin, Sargy": "I accept my weakness with my friends' / Good natures sweetening each day my sick room."
Lemmons