MARY Hancock has a room that echoes the stories seeped into its walls.

The one story she wants to hear is how that room came to be.

A renovation of the room at 43 High Street, in Presteigne, revealed ornate Georgian panelling and plasterwork that marked its past status.

That status is apparent in the garlanded silhouettes over the fireplace of George III and Queen Charlotte and intervals of intricately carved pineapples to indicate wealth.

No other part of the house has anything like it.

“Clearly this was a very important room for something or someone in its day,” said Mary.

Some days, within its walls, Mary will hear the discourse of Georgian merchants supping coffee to seal deals befitting the then county town of Radnorshire.

A Georgian coffee house is what she believes the room to be.

Without that essential anecdotal evidence, however, imagination may be all Mary has as to what her “room that echoes” was.

Its story has been, quite literally, painted over, with applications made over at least 200 years painstakingly peeled away before the ornamentation was exposed.

Dating back to the 1550s, the house has been in Mary’s family for a mere 20 years.

She is sure that in the 1900s the room was an ancillary to an adjacent hardware store and housed a milliner — the evidence is there in hat labels Mary has found beneath the floorboards.

More recently, a hairdressing business was based there.

Mary has every intention of the room retaining its original features once the renovation is complete.