Pixel Gatehouse

Tixall Gatehouse, near Stafford, is the only remaining part of Tixall Hall and now stands alone, surrounded by fields.



The gatehouse was built around 1580 in the Elizabethan Classical style and is a Grade I listed building. It was in danger of following both the Tudor hall and its successor into oblivion when it was bought by the Landmark Trust (for only 300 pounds!) restored and converted into self-catering holiday accommodation.

Incidentally, it's hard to find pictures of the front of the gatehouse online, probably because the scruffy drive and piles of stone left over from the renovation aren't as photogenic as the view from behind across the fields. The front and back are almost identical, anyway.

The Sims 3 version

Pixel Gatehouse is a mixture of the current state of the gatehouse (the roof terrace, some furnishings and decor) and some older features (fireplaces at both ends of each floor and the chimneys to go with them. The chimneys were demolished in the 1800s but can be seen in old illustrations.) The building had to be scaled down a little to look right within the limitations of the game, which made the authentic floorplans too cramped for Sims to move around easily. The living accommodation in the real gatehouse is essentially all on one floor. In this one, the kitchen has been moved down to the ground floor, the two bedrooms relocated to the second floor (replacing the huge table tennis room) and the main part of the first floor left as a single open-plan living/dining room. The real-life corner turrets house two small bedrooms and three bathrooms; in the Sims 3 version, there's still (just) enough space for a useable shower room but the beds had to go and the bathtub's been moved into the master bedroom. A second spiral staircase was added, to allow both halves of the ground floor to be accessed from the living room. Above it, a ladder leads up to the roof. The Long(-ish) Gallery on the second floor is authentically Tudor but there's no evidence that the gatehouse ever had one - it just fitted with the rest of the floorplan.

Required/optional content

The only expansions that are really required are Supernatural and Showtime, for the windows and arches respectively, and arguably also Ambitions, for the Corinthian columns on the second floor. The other expansions and stuff packs listed provide a few furnishings/decorative items each and are optional.

The two Supernatural cookers in the kitchen fireplace are pretending to be an Aga-type range cooker. The cooker from the Provence store set works better for this, if you have it.

Lot Size: 40x40
Lot Price (furnished): 182,131
Lot Price (unfurnished): 105,796