House for sale has barely been touched for 500 years

Entering this house makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time. 

A 16th-century house for sale in East Sussex, UK has been left virtually unchanged since it was first built in 1580. 

The three-bedroom house is on the market for £800,000 ($AU1.5 million), and is located in a conservation area in the town of Hastings. 

From the outside, the house looks straight out of a storybook. It has a half-timbered facade, mullioned windows, and a hefty front door lined with hobnails. 

Stepping inside, you enter a dim room with gentle sunlight pouring through the diamond-paned windows. A large brick inglenook fireplace harks back to the days when this was the only heat source to get residents through the cold winters. 

In the kitchen, modern details have been sensitively installed so that nothing looks out of place. Antique taps, an AGA stove, and rustic open shelving make all the new additions appear to harmonise with the existing heritage home. 

Upstairs, built-in timber beds give the bedrooms an authentic historic feel. 

Perhaps the most eye-catching room is the upstairs bathroom, which has a freestanding bathtub made from an old barrel. 

Real estate agency Inigo explains that all the recent renovations were done with the greatest care. 

“The house has undergone a meticulous restoration that gracefully preserves its original Tudor character,” the agency says. 

For instance, the listing explains that the dining room floorboards were “cut from reclaimed groyne oak sourced from the dismantled groynes of the local beaches, revealing their weathered surfaces that have been infused with salt”.

It’s an impressive offering, especially for a price tag that’s more than $150,000 below the Sydney median.