House in the Clouds

Above the treetops of the Suffolk village of Thorpeness, a small weatherboarded house appears to float on top of a tall, narrow tower. This is the House in the Clouds, and it began life as a disguise. In 1923 the village needed a water tank, fed by the neighbouring Thorpeness Windmill, and rather than put up an industrial tower in the middle of a fantasy holiday resort, its builders clad the tank to look like a cottage perched in the sky, in keeping with the mock-Tudor and Jacobean houses around it.

Thorpeness itself is a curiosity. From 1910 the barrister Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie, owner of the surrounding estate, turned the coast here into a private resort for his friends' families, with a country club, a golf course, Tudor-revival houses and a shallow boating lake, the Meare, whose islands and landings are named after scenes from Peter Pan — J. M. Barrie was a friend of the Ogilvies. The House in the Clouds is the resort's most whimsical flourish, and from across the Meare its roofline hangs over the woods like a stage set.

The tower's working life had its own drama: during the Second World War it was accidentally hit by fire from anti-aircraft guns stationed in the village, and the tank was patched with its own steel, which reduced its capacity from 50,000 to 30,000 gallons. When mains water reached Thorpeness in 1977 the tower was made redundant, and in 1979 the tank was removed so the whole building could become a house. It stands about 70 feet high, with 85 steps from top to bottom, and has been listed Grade II since 1995. The Twentieth Century Society chose it to represent the year 1924 in its book 100 Buildings in 100 Years. Today it is let as holiday accommodation, so most people admire it from the lanes and the lakeside.

Getting there

The House in the Clouds is in Thorpeness on the Suffolk coast, just north of Aldeburgh. The nearest larger town is Lowestoft, about 34 km away, and Norwich Airport (NWI) is about 59 km away.