In My House: Tim Bentinck aka David Archer

Tim Bentinck started playing the part of David Archer in the eponymous BBC Radio 4 soap opera ‘The Archers’ in 1982, the same year he and his wife, Judy, moved into their Victorian, semi-detached house in North London. Having spent 30 years doing the house up, Bentinck is now somewhat attached to his abode. “It’s the fifth member of our family,” he told Access London. “It feels like an unfinished project. You have to maintain these houses.” To see how it’s looking so far, Bentinck takes Access London for a tour of the house …

My house dates back to… 1852

When we moved in the house was… in a terrible, terrible state. I had to pull all the floor boards up and everything. I ripped all the plaster off the walls and I thought ‘that actually looks quite nice’. I knocked the walls down and, with the brick work that had piled up, built the kitchen. I just found bits of old wood in skips –I was a broke actor, well I still am really… Now the house has a lovely feel.

My kitchen is… organic. There is no Ikea in sight.

Interior style… The first idea was: ‘Let’s make it feel like the country.’ I like the idea of wood and brick. I did History of Art at university, before attending Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and one of the things about Ruskin was the idea of ‘truth to materials’ –that material should be what it is, it shouldn’t pretend to be something else.

The radio station I listen to at home is… BBC Radio 4 or Radio 2.

I own a lot of books… Some of them I inherited from my father’s study. I am a great fan of historical novels; I love learning about history through fiction, because it’s such an easy way of learning –you just get involved in things. I love popular science, you know, being a scientist without actually being a scientist. Modern technology and science fascinate me. I seriously got into the Jack Reacher books recently.

I own the following instruments: Guitar, banjos, electric guitars, synthesiser. I’ve been spending my life writing songs, I love multi-tracking. I am bit of a geek, I write computer programmes. The mixture of music and computers is really good fun. But on the other hand it used to be that you had to play an instrument in order to make music, now you don’t have to play an instrument to make music, which is a bit of a shame.

Tea or Coffee? … Coffee. I am a total coffee snob.

My garden?… I am not a great gardener, my wife Judy is the gardener. I will do the mowing and the maintenance. It needs a huge amount of work doing to it. When the children were small I built a tree house which had ladders and ropes. I also built the shed. I am currently teaching myself to weld.

CDs or records I own… I don’t buy records anymore, but I was a complete and utter David Bowie freak. I have seen him 13 times and recently went to the Bowie exhibition, which was extraordinary. My two sons are hugely into music, so they keep me abreast of what’s going on in music.

Keep an eye out for Tim Bentinck in: Spy drama The Game; an adaptation of David Walliams’s book Gangsta Granny and more.