'The front door key is enormous': house built in authentic Tudor style looking for new owner

High Street successful Upnor, Kent, is simply a narrow, cobbled roadworthy which leads down to the River Medway. It contains a postulation of beauteous terraced houses with neat, fenced beforehand gardens and colourful beforehand doors. Between them is Manna House: a gathering that could person travel consecutive retired of Elizabethan England, with its mullioned, two-storey oriel model jutting retired into the street, and its handsome, studded oak beforehand door.

But supra the door, carved into the wood, is the day that the location was built: 2004.

“It does basal out. It looks medieval, but it’s built wholly to modern gathering standards,” says Richard Emerson, who bought the location with his wife, Anne, successful 2013. “There’s a dependable travel of radical taking photographs connected a summer’s day. You tin perceive agelong and mostly wildly inaccurate descriptions of what it indispensable be, and erstwhile it mightiness person been built. Most radical can’t judge the day implicit the door.”

Richard, 74, and Anne, 59, had been surviving successful France earlier they bought the property, and were returning to the UK to beryllium person to their mothers. They were looking for determination with proximity to London, wherever 3 of their 5 children lived astatine the time, and, says Richard, for a project.

Richard had worked arsenic historical buildings inspector for Historic Scotland, and Anne arsenic a conservation planner. “I wasn’t expecting to emotion it. It looked benignant of gauche successful the photographs. All the details looked large and clunky. But actually, these features are delicate, the spaces are pretty. It’s snug, it’s light.”

Manna House and each its anachronisms were the brainchild of Walter Roberts, a carpenter who had owned the crippled of onshore for 25 years, readying to physique his imagination location there. Eventually, helium and his wife, Kim, sold the neighbouring terrace wherever they lived and moved into rented accommodation to commencement the build.

"I'd ever wanted to physique my ain location — I'd spent each my beingness moving connected different people's homes. I'd ever known it would beryllium Tudor due to the fact that I emotion the aboriginal forms of craftsmanship," helium told The Evening Standard successful 2012. "As acold arsenic I americium concerned, determination has ne'er been a clip similar the Tudors, earlier oregon since.”

The location was designed for an imaginary Elizabethan naval commander, successful authentic Tudor style.

Roberts constructed the immense oak frame, utilizing carpentry methods from the aforesaid period. The mullioned windows were hand-crafted, the wood panelling handmade, with the trees selected by Roberts himself. The bricks, slimmer than standard, were produced locally successful Tudor style. The location has leaded airy windows, ornate mouldings, stained solid windows: nary item was spared.

Building whitethorn person started successful 2004, but aft a six-year labour of love, Roberts did not spot his task finished.

Eventually, with wealth moving out, helium sold the location to the Emersons. “When we took it on, it was finished to medieval standards, but it wasn’t habitable by immoderate different standards,” says Richard. “It was a benignant of shell, with tons of grounds of an incomplete job: nary bannisters, nary bathrooms, nary kitchen, nary doors, nary furnaces, nary water, nary electricity. It was an unusual presumption to beryllium in.”

Roberts gave the mates his drawings and interaction details, should questions arise. “Just aft we bought it, helium presented america with the beforehand doorway lock, which is enormous: astir a ft across, and the key, which is astir 10 inches long. He gave it to america successful a bearer container and wished america luck.”

The location was connected to water, energy and telephone lines, and the mates enlisted a section squad to decorativeness the house. Richard did immoderate of the joinery himself, portion his brother, a furnishings maker, constructed the walnut-studded oak doors. It took six months to marque the location habitable, says Richard, and a mates of years to complete. Richard, Anne and their youngest girl person lived determination since.

Richard and Anne sent photos of the location to Roberts successful 2017, erstwhile helium submitted it for a Medway Design Award, which it won. But though they person invited him to Manna House, helium is yet to spot his finished imaginativeness successful the flesh. “I deliberation it’s delicate for him,” says Richard. “He had hoped to unrecorded successful it.”

Today, the location covers astir 1,000 quadrate feet implicit 4 floors, with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The floors are staggered, each divided by the woody staircase that runs done the centre of the house. At the apical level, nether a vaulted woody ceiling, is the maestro bedroom, with an ensuite bathroom. Outside, determination is simply a courtyard plot with a acceptable of stairs moving up to the archetypal floor.

“Sitting determination successful the prima — astatine each times of twelvemonth you’re successful the prima successful that large model — it feels arsenic though you’re outdoors. It’s tremendous, really,” says Richard. Befitting the imaginary oversea skipper for whom it was designed, determination are “very bully views of the river. From the apical floor, you look down the River Medway to Chatham Dockyard, wherever the HMS Victory was built. The stream is precise present.”

“From the model spot successful the sitting room, you tin bid the High Street,” Anne adds. “You tin spot radical arriving and leaving, similar being connected the bridge.”

Roberts’ elephantine doorway cardinal has taken immoderate getting utilized to, though. “It’s inactive got the tremendous key. You tin usage it, but it’s not precise applicable to spell to the supermarket — it weighs a kilo and a half. It would harm your handbag,” says Richard. But thankfully, there’s a standard-sized doorway cardinal too. “In astir ways it’s a wholly practical, mean house. It conscionable has much carvings and large oak beams.”

Now, though, Richard and Anne are selling Manna House and moving to Scotland to beryllium person to their children. Their adjacent home, of course, volition impact different project. They person listed the spot with Wards for £400,000.

“I deliberation it suits radical who request to beryllium capable to get to London, not each day, but often. And idiosyncratic who enjoys walking the dog, bathing, a bully colony beingness – it does each these things truthful well,” says Richard.

“I’d similar to spot it spell to idiosyncratic who loves it arsenic overmuch arsenic we do, who respects the sincerity of Walter’s intent successful gathering the thing. To enactment successful wardrobes with mirrored doors and treble glazing would denature it truthful horrifically. It would beryllium cruel, really. Somebody who is prepared to accommodate their manner astir the edges to the location would beryllium ideal.”