Below is a description of the property written by the artist Tom Wolseley in July 2014, who collaborated on the design for The Link House:

"The Link House was completed in 1957 as a switch, connecting and disconnecting the electricity grids of Britain and France.

The building is an exemplary example of utilitarian architecture of that period, when technical infrastructure was seen as a celebration of national achievement. The foundation is probably about 6’ of solid concrete (we haven’t been able to find the bottom of it yet) and the window surrounds are tropical hardwood that, after 50 years in seaside conditions, are still sound. Cavity walls keep the inside dry, and solid. The building is still surrounded by the inch and a half copper earthing, that at one time also lined the interior. There is some signage still left, some of it in French, obviously to aid in communication with the other side (or the installation may have been built by the French).

The way the building worked was that from the holes in the floor on one side of the main room led two very large armoured cables that went out across the channel to Boulogne. The cables were connected to 6’ stacks of bronze and glazed insulators, suspended in the centre of the room on a steel gantry, so large that they had to be lowered in through the skylights in the ceiling by crane. These were in turn connected by a series of counterbalanced arms, that linked the assembly to the insulators and cable leading from the other side of the room to the British national grid. To swing the arms into place you stood in the smaller room next door and pulled a leaver 180’ to turn the whole system on and of. Almost all of this was in place until very recently, when it was removed by the National Grid.

Nick Alexander and I wanted to come up with a design that was at once sympathetic to the existing building, while also accommodating the spectacular views east and west, out to sea and inland across the 10 miles of the Dungeness peninsula.

From the first floor of the eastward side you can look out over the channel to France and on a clear night see lighthouses flashing right down the French coast. From the westward façade you will be able to get the evening light, and see the sun set against distant hills across the peninsula.

Dungeness itself is one of the more peculiar places in Britain, the largest shingle peninsula in Europe, and Britain’s only desert according to the met office, added to the fact that it is only an hour and a half from London makes it a great place to get away and feel somewhere very different. It also has character, a miniature train , travels half hourly in front of the building, long walks across the shingle peninsula behind can take you to the Old Sound Mirrors, large cast concrete ‘ears’, pre radar reflectors for early warning of German attack said to be able to hear planes taking off in France. The area around is a SSSI, and a SAC site of Nature conservation, and is an extraordinary habitat."