How would you like to live in a castle, a tree house or
even underground? This might not be as unusual as you
think. It seems that these days more and more people
want to live somewhere special and out of the ordinary,
and if they can’t buy what they want they are quite
prepared to build it from scratch.
For John Mew and his wife Josephine their home really
is their castle. They have built their own English castle in
the Sussex countryside. The building is brand new with
all the luxuries you would expect from a house that cost
more than í350,000 to build. However, when you first see
it from the outside it would be easy to think that you are
looking at an ancient monument. The building has a lot
of the features of a traditional castle, including a keep,
a moat and a drawbridge. “My choice of house is
somewhat eccentric and building it was very hard work,
but we’ve got the perfect place to live,” Mew says.
Although some would say that the building is impractical
and may be cold in harsh British winters, he certainly has
got a unique and spacious home.
If you don’t look carefully, you might not even see
the home that Jonathan Ridley-Jones and Shanon Ridd
built at all! That’s because the house is a converted
underground water tank. The only thing that can be seen
from the surface is a door leading into the hillside. “We’ve
never wanted to live in an ordinary house,” Shanon says.
“Living below ground means that our home is quiet
and very cosy – none of the usual draughts. It doesn’t
damage the local surroundings and has very low fuel
bills. Some of our friends find it dark and feel shut in
when they first visit, but they soon get used to it!”