Architecture Week

John Warnett went for a tour of a house that has grown and developed over seven centuries, but remained loyal to its modest roots.

By anybody's standards, Ightham Mote is impressive. A sprawling medieval manor, complete with its own moat, surrounded by beautiful gardens. But what isn't immediately apparent on first glance is that Ightham Mote is a living museum of architecture. The original manor house dates back to 1320, and there have been people living there all that time.

Various building styles in the courtyard

Records show the house had 30 different owners before the last, Charles Henry Robinson, an American, donated it to the National Trust in 1985, but most of the time it has been in the hands of two families, the Hautes (between 1399 and 1519) and the Selbys (1592 - 1889). These two families were responsible for much of the building work and their legacies are everywhere.

Stuart Page, the Tunbridge Wells based architect charged with helping restore the house, describes it as "being able to walk from 1320 right into the 21st century".

But none of the owners were particularly rich, or famous, so much of the work was probably done for necessity, rather than design. Had they been wealthier, it would have been more likely that the house would have been knocked down and rebuilt several times over.

Luckily, that didn't happen. Which is why today there are cottages dating from 1475 that still house staff and guests, a Victorian billiard room and the world's only grade 1 listed dog kennel.

John finds out more from the experts

It's impossible to describe on one page the variety of things to see at Ightham Mote, and difficult to put into perspective how unusual the buliding is.

Restoring old houses isn't that rare, but in this case the restoration has had to mimic several different styles of building.

The National Trust has spent £10m and 15 years restoring the house, using techniques that in many cases haven't been used for centuries, to make sure it stays that way, hopefully for another 700 years.