Me and my listed house


Behind the modest frontage – a real period gem


B


eneath many a rendered exterior in small terraced houses in old English towns there is a timbered


medieval gem inside, all too willing to show off its glories to those lucky enough to enter.


None more so than the Grade II listed late 15th century terraced town house in the high street in the historic village of Dorchester-on- Thames (as a settlement it predates nearby Oxford) that is home to Malcolm Airs and Megan Parry.


They have lived there since 1979, and the building has been lucky. Malcolm has been a great historic buildings enthusiast since his days at Oriel College Oxford, where he studied history. He is perhaps best known for his Tudor and Jacobean Country House, a tome that has been constantly in print since he completed


it in 1975 and was developed from his thesis on the subject that gained him his doctorate in 1970.


Malcolm retired as Professor of Conservation and the Historic Environment at Oxford University in 2006 and last year received an OBE from The Queen, as well as being made a life fellow of his old college. He’s a busy man, ably supported for the past 49 years by his partner Megan.


Still very active in both the university and the local community, at the age of 78 Malcolm has always been an enthusiast for increasing people’s knowledge about the pleasure to be derived from studying and getting to know old buildings. More so the ways of conserving rather than ruining them if you are lucky enough to own and live in one.


Continued >>


A close-up of Malcolm’s work area. His


computer is on a desk hidden behind the half-height bookshelves to the left. “It suits me very well,” he says. “It came about by pure happenstance”


Left: A view of the high street. As a settlement Dorchester is extremely old and predates Oxford, eight miles to the north. Today the town is probably best-known as the principal setting of ITV’s crime drama series Midsomer Murders


Middle: The house from the rear. In the foreground is the area where in 1987 the entire level was lowered


Right: The kitchen is situated to the right as you enter the lobby entrance. It would have been the front room in one of the two original single-bay living units that were amalgamated to form the present house. Malcolm reckons this was around 1700


Listed Heritage Magazine January/February 2020 111


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