Through The Keyhole - Angela Charles

Angela Charles lives in Somerset. Her home was built by an architect. With no windows on the road side (to the north) and a 50cm outside wall the traffic is completely blocked off. With all windows on the south side the house retains the heat from the sun and needs very little heating.

Angela and her husband saw the house being built and were looking to move from Brighton to her husband's native West Country and bought the house from the architect in 2001. It's built on an old allotment, on a triangular piece of land on the A30. It looks like a conversion with it's round tower but it's not, the architect just fancied building the round tower at the end of the house and it fits perfectly on the shape of the land. The house is built with local Somerset hamstone and was a pretty controversial build for Crewkerne, a small market town in Somerset , whose recent claim to fame was Pete Dohertys scuffle with a fan who took his photograph in the town centre!

Angela loves gazing through the south facing windows from the kitchen-diner to the sun terrace and beyond, most of the rooms in the house centre around the sun terrace with views over Crewkerne, the view is of industry, housing and the fields beyond and looks different every day.

Angela says, "The feature that won me over was the round hall way with the natural light coming through which echoes the round tower. The round tower part holds the living room on the ground floor and the master bedroom and ensuite upstairs, people often ask if we've got a round bed - no we haven't!"

As an artist/curator/collector the house also holds a collection of artworks including those by Peter Joyce, Jessica Cooper, Mark Surridge, Padraig Macmiadhachain, Brian Graham, Oliver Teagle, and Antoni Tapies.

The wooden boat sculpture in the kitchen is by Lawrence Dicks, he was on a stand near to me at Brighton Art Fair which was fatal, it meant looking at it all weekend, I had to have it!

Angela is exhibiting at the Brighton Art Fair in September 2008.