Inspiration of the Week: in praise of imperfection in the Kentish countryside

Straight lines are pleasing, sure. We like them because they represent order, clarity, simplicity. But aren’t they a bit… stiff? Nature has none of them, after all, and we’ve lost count of the times someone has waxed lyrical to us about the wonders of a sloping floor. “The straight line is not a creative line,” wrote the Austrian expressionist artist, architect and environmentalist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Looking at the crooked, skewed and curved planes at Tanyard, an early 16^th-century timber-framed house in the Kent village of Boughton Monchelsea – currently on the market – we’re inclined to agree.

Some of the bends and bows here are intentional. There are the arched and carved doorframes downstairs, hewn from ancient trees, and the collars and crucks of the venerable wooden frame – sometimes infilled with traditional lime plaster, sometimes open.

But the house’s other forms give into the world’s natural wonkiness. Set between the hummocks and vales of the Kentish Weald and Downs, this house seems almost of the landscape – both in its vernacular materials and vocabulary, and its slopes and cambers. A massive lintel above the sitting room’s fireplace is only as straight as the mighty oak from which it came – and sets the tone for the higgledy-piggledy arrangement of stones that sits on top. Floors of smooth brick – perfectly laid, perfectly uneven – speak of years of use, while wonderfully wobbly walls are a celebration of making by hand throughout history.

Many readers will be aware of the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, a fundamental tenet of which is that beauty lies in imperfection. That this philosophy finds expression beneath the hipped roof of a Medieval Wealden hall house in the Kentish downs is perhaps surprising – and that’s just as it should be. Here, the expression isn’t entirely flawless, for wabi-sabi also advocates the acceptance of transience, whereas this mighty building, filled with imperfect, meandering. “creative” lines, has survived the centuries – and there’s plenty of life in it yet.