Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Squeezed to meet you! Inside the narrowest home in Britain


Anyone who claims you can't cram a quart into a pint pot should visit the house owned by Iain and Rachel Boyle. It is only 6ft wide and 21ft from front to back.


Yet in that tiny space is an entrance hall, kitchen and shower room on the ground floor, a first-floor living room and a bedroom in the eaves.


Mr and Mrs Boyle believe that the former donkey-cart shed could be Britain's narrowest inhabited terrace home and have written to Guinness World Records to ask if they are right.



The slender house, which is sandwiched between two unremarkable houses in the middle of a terrace, is 21ft deep and 6ft wide


The couple, who run a publishing business, bought the building in the Hollingdean area of Brighton for £8,000 12 years ago.


They spent another £15,000 turning it into a stylish pièd-a-terre and now rent it out.




Owners Iain and Rachel Boyle, pictured with sons Joe and Charlie, believe it must be Britain's narrowest inhabited terraced home


Mrs Boyle, 45, said: 'There was still straw and bits of cart in the mezzanine storage area, which we have made into the bedroom.'


The ground-floor kitchen has a door to the garden, which is the same width as the house and 10ft long.




A normal-sized staircase takes you up to living area, which is just wide enough for a small two-seater sofa to fit snugly


A staircase provides access to the living area - just wide enough for a two-seater sofa to fit snugly - and a wooden loft ladder on a pulley system leads to the bed area.


The couple hope their sons Joe, 14, and Charlie, 11, will one day have a chance to live in the tiny house.





Cat-swinging not recommended: Rachel and Charlie in the kitchen of the 6ft-wide terrace home


Mr Boyle, 51, said: 'Property is so expensive in Brighton that our tenants have always been thrilled to find a house they can afford with a garden.


'They don't ever have to switch the heating on - it is so narrow that it is insulated by its neighbours.'


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