A retired couple has been awarded a £3.3m payout after their historical Tudor riverside home, once a lodging for King Henry VIII, suffered extensive damage from flooding.
Keen amateur historians Roger and Suzanne Brookhouse purchased the Grade-II listed King’s Lodging, a timber-framed medieval house on the River Stour in Sandwich, Kent, in 1991. The property, which includes an outdoor swimming pool, famously hosted King Henry VIII in 1520 as he surveyed his fleet before sailing for the Field of the Cloth of Gold summit.
Despite its age, the residence was in “satisfactory” condition in 2013. However, subsequent flood defence work by the Environment Agency led to a rise in groundwater levels. This resulted in cracked and bulging walls, a boggy garden, and a ruined outdoor pool.
The couple pursued legal action against the Agency at the Upper Tribunal, where a judge has now awarded them more than £3.3m to cover the costs of the damage.
The total compensation ordered of £3,315,200 includes more than £800,000 for remedial work to the garden, after it was “inundated with salt water” and left “unplantable”.
The couple were also awarded about £1.2m to rectify the groundwater level and nearly £200,000 for a new swimming pool.
Tribunal judge Elizabeth Cooke said the case was “of crucial importance to the claimants, for whom the property is their retirement home and whose lives have been disrupted for over 12 years now by the works and their consequences.
“We acknowledge their distress, as does the Environment Agency, and we reiterate the view we expressed…that the respondent has done its best and has acted fairly throughout,” she added.
The case reached the tribunal in March after a previous ruling in 2023, in which Judge Cooke found the Agency liable to pay compensation, as its work had caused higher groundwater levels in their garden, damaging the house.
In the earlier decision, Judge Cooke recounted the storied history of the property and its more recent plight due to water from the river.
“In 1520, King Henry VIII stood at the window of the building now known as The King’s Lodging in Sandwich to review his fleet before setting sail for the Field of the Cloth of Gold,” she said.
“From the same window today, the most striking feature is the wall between the property and the River Stour, built by the Environment Agency, as part of the Sandwich Town Tidal Defence Scheme.
“The claimants, Mr and Mrs Brookhouse, are the owners of The King’s Lodging and they say that their property has been damaged, and will continue to be damaged, by raised groundwater levels caused by the respondent’s works.”
The house and its garden had been for many years separated from the river by a wall, but in 2014 the Agency constructed a new wall a metre further out into the river and filled the space between them with drainage material.
But the couple complained that, after the work was done, water appeared regularly in their garden, which Mr Brookhouse said had never previously been “boggy”.
The judge was shown videos of water leaking through the new wall into the garden, with an incident in 2019 showing riverwater seeping in along the whole 53 metre length of the garden.
The wooden-framed house, which dates to the 15th or early 16th century, had been surveyed before the work and found in “satisfactory” condition, with some hairline cracks and damp on the ground floor.
However, since the work was done, cracks have widened, more have appeared, paint and plasterwork has deteriorated and part of the front of the house now “bows outwards”, the couple said.
Mr and Mrs Brookhouse claimed that a rise in groundwater levels as a result of the flood defence work means the house was left standing in wet ground, causing damage and the risk of more in future.
They had also been told that their previously “thriving” garden had been left unplantable due to the water levels and the salt in the soil.
Their 1980s-installed outdoor swimming pool had also suffered due to movement in the concrete, leaving it damaged beyond repair, the couple claimed.
They did not need to prove that the Environment Agency work was negligent, only that it was the cause of the groundwater rise which led to the damage.
And after hearing expert evidence, Judge Cooke found in favour of the couple, saying that groundwater after the work was up to a metre higher.
The case returned to the tribunal for a decision on how much the couple are due in compensation, with their barrister, James Pereira KC, saying: “The building appears to have suffered more in the last few years than it has done in the last few hundred.”
“Like many, their home has significance beyond personal survival. It is the place of family memories, a connection to the water, an expression of their passion for history and historic buildings.
“They recognise their role as custodians of this special place, whose statutory listing acknowledges the national interest in preserving and protecting it. It is a unique property.”
However, the Agency contested the size of the claim, arguing that the sum requested was “excessive and disproportionate” and pointing out that the £4.5m they claimed was more than twice the £1.9m maximum value of the house.
Ruling, Judge Cooke said the Agency had made “valiant attempts” to prevent further flooding, but that its own consulting engineers had agreed with the Brookhouses’ expert that a “flow path” had been established beneath the wall of the claimants’ dock and that remediation work had addressed the symptoms of the problem but not the cause.
She agreed with the couple’s expert’s suggestion of a £1.2m “targeted solution” to remedy the raised water levels in the garden, demolishing the current wall and replacing it with one with steel piles driven “deep below the river-bed.”
“It is agreed that the garage, which stands at the head of the dock, will have to be demolished both in order for the dock wall works to be carried out and in order to restore the garden,” she continued.
“It has been obvious from when the works were first proposed that the garden would suffer. The respondent needed a working corridor parallel with the river, and it was always going to be necessary to replace the planting in that section of the garden.
“As things turned out, because of the repeated need for remedial works after 2014 that part of the garden was rather more thoroughly excavated than originally envisaged, as well as having been inundated by salt water on the occasions of the extra-high tidal inflows.
“It is not in dispute that the respondent has to pay for the restoration of the garden.
“It will be a major operation. Soil has to be removed and replaced, plants and trees have to be installed, and then…a five-year period of monitoring and an obligation to replace plants that fail during that period.
“The parties agree that the garage will need to be demolished and rebuilt, and that the cost will be £104,884. They also agree that a garden wall needs to be restored.”
Turning to work required on the house itself, she continued: “The work that it is agreed needs to be done includes the replacement of some external stonework and brick, and the tying back of the east wall of the house where it has bowed outwards.
“The restoration of timber posts in the hall which have been damaged by water at their base, together with the replacement of some panelling and plaster, replacement of Yorkstone paving and some panelling in the dining room, repair of several fireplaces, replacement of panelling, plaster and tiling in the drawing room and bedrooms.”
The judge also agreed with the couple’s claim that the swimming pool failed due to the Environment Agency work, and not simply because it was old.
“Given the sensitivity of this type of pool to groundwater levels, we find that the probable cause…was the respondent’s works, which means that the respondent must pay the cost of removing and replacing the pool,” she said.
