AND now for something completely different . . . thatched roof, ragstone and Victorian. These are not usually mix and match descriptions when it comes to property but visited a house featuring all three elements.

Think of a gingerbread house, triple it in size, replace the gingerbread with Kentish ragstone and hey presto! The highly unusual Kettle Farmhouse presents just such a vision.

It’s the sort of Hansel and Gretel-type place that could easily have figured in a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. The thick thatch overlapping the ragstone walls like giant eyebrows adds to the magical atmosphere created by its secluded position.

You would never know it was there, tucked away up a steep no-through lane wending its way up from the banks of the River Medway to East Farleigh, near Maidstone. The views across the verdant valley are magnificent with faraway lights twinkling at night from the county town.

But the scale of the place is definitely not fairy-like. This is an extremely spacious pad just meant for families.

There are four bedrooms, one en suite, in the main section of the house, a two-bedroom annexe with a third bathroom, a one-bedroom detached cottage with its own living room, kitchen, bathroom and conservatory, plus an unusual medieval-style detached thatched barn, currently used for garaging and lawnmowers, which could make another little cottage with planning permission.

Somewhere on the property, yet to be discovered, is a well which could come in handy in a drought. Robert and Sue Jardine have lived here for 25 years but with their family grown up and having flown the nest they are looking for somewhere smaller.

Sue, a stalwart member of both Bearsted Tennis Club and Bearsted Golf Club, said: "We’ll be very, very sad to leave such a lovely place. It’s tranquil but not isolated.

"But my husband doesn’t want to spend his his retirement mowing the lawn."

Sue is definitely a thatch fan: "The roof was completely re-thatched in Norfolk reed, which is the best, last year at a cost of about £23,000. It should last 50 years. The secret is to keep the netting secure otherwise squirrels and birds get in.

"It’s fantastic insulation - very warm in winter and cool in summer. Even in the recent cold winter we only had to turn the heating on for about an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening."

The grounds extend to about two and a quarter acres, and include an immaculate floodlit court with extremely distracting panoramic views for the serious player. There are plenty of sunny nooks and crannies to sit and perhaps eat some of the dessert grapes from the vine growing up one sheltered wall.

Sue and Robert have worked miracles with the garden which was "wall to wall grass" when they moved in. Now it is planted with an attractive and easy-to-maintan selection of shrubs including an unusual yellow magnolia.

Curiously, the interior features remnants from Staplehurst church including carved oak door apnels and decorative wrought iron scrolls on the staircase. The oak-panelled drawing room is a particular feature of the main house which also houses a hall, dining room, study, kitchen/breakfast room, conservatory and thatched car port.

Sue explained some of the history of Kettle Farmhouse: "The farm belonged to the Tapsfield family. When the father died, his two spinster daughters ran it and they also registered births, marriages and deaths for people living nearby."

Now the only livestock, not counting a jolly collection of frogs in the bathroom, are Sue’s two friendly hens housed in the old ladder shed.

The estate agent’s details describe Kettle Farmhouse as "a character" property, and you simply cannot argue with that.

The 14th century ragstone bridge across the River Medway at East Farleigh is generally reckoned to be the oldest medieval bridge in South East.

The bridge featured prominently in the Civil War Battle of Maidstone, when Royalists tried to hold the town against Parliamentary forces led by General Fairfax. The Royalists, who assembled on Penenden Heath, knew the Roundheads were at Rochester and expected the attack to come from north or west of the town. Instead, Fairfax sent his men round the town, crossing the Medway over East Farleigh bridge and then swooping up from the south to win the day.

The East Farleigh village sign features the bridge and the river and also three oast kilns and fruiting hop bine. Once across the river, the road climbs steeply and from the top there is a splendid view across the valley, the sides of which were, until the last few years, thickly clothed in hop gardens, now largely replaced by fruit trees.

In St Mary’s churchyard there is a cross to the memory of 43 hop-pickers who died of cholera at East Farleigh in 1849.

Edith Cavell, the nurse who was accused of spying and shot by the Germans in Brussels in 1915, nursed typhoid victims at East Farleigh while she was a probationary nurse at Maidstone in 1896.