A couple from London who had known each other for three months decided to buy a house with each other, and not just any house, a 600-year-old 'Crooked House' - possibly the wonkiest in Britain.
The Crooked House is in the historic village of Lavenham in Suffolk. The town is famous for the amazing Medieval houses that make it feel like you've stepped out of the Tardis and Henry IIIV is on the throne.
The house, despite its appearance, is perfectly safe and sturdy and is the house that inspired the nursery rhyme There Was a Crooked Man. Now, it's not just the source material for a nursery rhyme but a home to Alex and Oli Khalil-Martin who bought it in 2021.
The couple, originally from London, met online during lockdown in 2020 and quickly fell head over heels for each other. "It felt right and it still feels right,” Oli told Cambridgeshire Live.
After only knowing each other for three months, Alex's dream home came on sale, one that he had seen a few years earlier. Alex said: "It all began in 2018 in December. When I was living in London at the time, came to Lavenham and fell in love with this beautiful little village.
"It was a miserable wet day but I thought even in the rain I loved it. And then I came to the Crooked House and just fell in love with it and thought this is where I want to live. It felt like a crazy thing to think of, as I wasn’t planning on moving to the countryside, but it was just a house I really wanted to live in."
Alex continued: "Oli was in London and we were chatting online and remarkably the Crooked House came up for sale. And this was after our second or third conversation. I was like this is where we’re gonna live when we’re old.
"And so we were both convinced that that’s where we’ll be one day and then our offices said you don’t have to be in five days a week and you can work remotely and so why wait 30 years, why not do it now? And so it was kind of mad. We’d only known each other for three months and we had an offer on the house.
"Well there’s only one of them, it wasn’t even that we wanted to move specifically to Lavenham, it was this house. There is only one of these and so if it’s available and we’re convinced that we’re gonna be together forever, then let’s do it."
Fast forward a little bit and within 18 months of knowing each other the couple had bought their dream house in the countryside and were engaged. They love their house so much that even their wedding cake was a replica of the Crooked House.
Having moved in early in 2021 the couple have gone about restoring it to its former glory as the self-titled Crooked Men. Oli said: "It’s not a perfect house for most people, it’s impractical and it’s got the wrong proportions but it’s perfect for us. Even the front of the house, the fact it is crooked, I think that’s quite symbolic for us that we love the house because it looks different.
"We’re a bit different, we’re not a normal couple, if you like, but actually people love the house because it’s different. I really like that it brings a smile to people’s faces because of its difference. So I think that just feels very right for us and the fact that we’re here to celebrate difference rather than hide away from it because people want to see it and love it so that’s another aspect why it feels so right for us in particular."
Being a Crooked House with a nursery rhyme written about you does mean that you gain a lot of attention. The house is quite famous and has crowds coming outside for pictures daily. An annoyance to some, for sure, but not this dynamic duo who love the house even more because of this.
Alex said: "The crowds that are outside most days taking photos, lots of people ask 'wouldn’t that get annoying?' But actually, we love it because people come from all over to see and take pictures of the house and well, we feel even luckier to live here, but also we love that they love it too.
"Every time you show someone a photo of the house they smile. That’s a lovely thing to be able to do, to just bring a bit of joy to someone’s day."
It has now been two years since Alex and Oli moved in and the couple are completely convinced that they will live there together for the rest of their lives, and even in the afterlife as there are a host of ghosts that call it home too.
Alex said: "It’s also somewhere that when we met, we both moved to it. It wasn’t like I’m moving into Oli’s house or he’s moving into mine, it was ours together. You sort of look around and it’s what we created together. This is our child basically. This is what we’ll do for the rest of our lives and it’s nice to know that all the adventures we have will be based around this.”
They host a variety of events from tours to black tie dinners where guests can enjoy a candlelit dinner in their dining room upstairs, and special ghost tours during the Halloween period.
Tickets for the popular house tour will go on sale on their website at the start of August 2023, with the first tours on Saturday, September 2 at 11am and 3pm and on Sunday, October 1 at 11am and 3pm. Tickets for these immersive experiences will be £45 per person.
Their black tie dinners are sold out for the rest of this year but they will be releasing more dates in September.
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