A restaurant in a transformed pub will cook on open fires – just like in Tudor times.

The Banks Restaurant with Rooms is due to open next year in Minster in the Prince of Waterloo building, one of the village’s oldest pubs.

Mark Seabrook, 60, a builder/developer from Queenborough, is carrying out the painstaking conversion himself, having bought the building three years ago.

He hopes to start trading next summer and predicts customers will be able to enjoy an experience unique to the region.

He said: “It’s going to be a restaurant where we only cook on open fires, just like in Henry VIII’s time.

“We think we’ll be the only place in the south east to cook in this way. I’m really excited by it, but we’re doing the building up slowly, taking our time to get it right.”

Dad-of-three Mark moved to Sheppey from London in 1990.

He said his enterprise, which will include accommodation in three en suite rooms, isn’t all driven by financial ambition.

He wants to be able to host community groups, “functions of any kind” and create a menu from home-grown produce. “The Island’s been good to me since I came here,” he said. “So it’s nice to be able to give something back.

“The Waterloo is a fantastic site with a fantastic history.

“I’ve traced it back to 1633 and I’ve got documentation that says Charles Dickens and the artist William Hogarth stayed there.”

Returning to his plans for the building, he added: “We’re retaining its history by bringing it back to its former glory. It was subsiding when we bought it, so we actually saved it.”

Mark said anyone who was a Prince of Waterloo regular before the pub’s closure will find the building much changed.

A large inglenook fireplace occupies the old bar area and there are plans for an open-plan kitchen.

He also aims to offer a “proper bar with cellar”, install sash windows throughout, and open up two wells in the garden.

In time, he hopes to build more accommodation there.

Mark said the restaurant is named in honour of Sir Edward Banks, who designed the building and two other renowned architectural Island sites -–Naval Terrace in Blue Town and Neptune Terrace in Sheerness.

“The restaurant will offer Islanders something different, something to be proud of,” he said.