Dungeness Beach in Kent is the largest area of shingle in Europe – 1,600 hectares of it. The harsh and dramatic landscape, dominated by the bulk of Dungeness B power station and dotted with a cottage or a fisherman’s weekend hut, is an architectural conservation area and has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) to preserve its unique ecology of grasses and shingle plants.

Simon Conder has re-designed a single-storey house on the shingle beach at Dungeness. Originally it was a typical beach bungalow; built in the 1930s before the Town and Country Planning Act. Like many others it had a simple timber frame which had originally been painted with tar, but had subsequently been altered and extended with a hotchpotch of make-do additions.