Death of the dining room? Mary Berry eats her words!

MARY BERRY outraged traditionalists when she declared the dining room was ‘dead’ — but it’s in rude health at the TV cook’s new house near Henley.

Despite claiming that she has ‘given up’ her dining room, Berry, 82, is planning to demolish a conservatory to build a grand dining room that will be ‘at the heart of the home’.

Architects’ plans for the presenter’s £2.6 million house say: ‘The existing poor-quality conservatory is proposed to be replaced with a new dining room.’

The plans add: ‘Folding screens are to be used to allow the dining room to be separated for special occasions, but very much at the heart of the home for day-to-day living.’

Mary’s dining room extension will overlook generous gardens that are being redesigned by celebrity gardener Bunny Guinness, a close friend of Prince Charles.

It’s hard to picture a more convivial space for the former Great British Bake Off presenter to host dinner parties.

But only two months ago, Berry revealed that she and her husband, Paul Hunnings, had decided to make their dining room redundant as they downsize from their £4million home in Penn, Buckinghamshire, to a smaller home in Oxfordshire, because they hardly use it.

‘We’ve given up our dining room, finally,’ Berry said at the Cheltenham Literary Festival in October. ‘We use it at Christmas and occasionally if we’re having people round, but it’s much easier in the kitchen, isn’t it?’ Berry bought the Grade II-listed property in March, but has yet to move in. She’s spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on renovations, to ‘reinvigorate the dwelling’. Her architect says: ‘The new owners are seeking to undertake alterations to the property to provide them with a family home to suit their immediate and future lifestyle requirements.’

One of Berry’s ‘key criteria’ is: ‘The dwelling must offer improved kitchen facilities with an adjoining dining room.’

While Berry can’t give up her dining room, she can manage without a swimming pool. The property’s detached indoor pool building will be turned into ‘extensive storage space’.