He has renovated more houses than most of us have had hot dinners but Nick Knowles still finds new quirks in every house he enters. Chris Price caught up with him.

The Mormon faith began its life in Maidstone. It is not a fact many people know but Nick Knowles could not help but chuckle when he found out while filming for his latest TV series.

The presenter was visiting the former Duke of Wellington pub in Woodside Green, a hamlet on the North Downs near Lenham. It is owned by Simon Mallett and Lesley Whitle, who have lived there for 10 years and are slowly restoring it back into a house.

In the first episode of the new series of Original Features – Nick’s show for digital channel Home – the 49-year-old helps the pair unlock the history of their property and convert it sympathetically. Yet he was not just impressed by the pub’s traditional features in Simon and Lesley’s case.

It turns out the Duke of Wellington is something of a minor tourist destination for Americans. The sons of the original owners of the pub moved to Utah in the early 19th century, where they became one of the founder members of the Mormon faith.

“It is quite funny that the Mormons are anti-alcohol and one of its founder members is from a pub family,” said Nick, who rose to fame as the presenter of DIY SOS on BBC1 and used to live in Hawkhurst, near Cranbrook.

“What I have always loved about social history is you always find out things along the way. A house over 100 years old will have had several generations live there and life will have changed considerably.

“A posh place now was a workers’ hovel 200 years ago.”

There is a hint of sadness in Nick’s work on Original Features, as he tries to protect the architecture and values of bygone eras. Yet the potential financial gain of looking after an old building like the Duke of Wellington makes the effort more than worth it for the owners.

“It stinks of beer from where people have spilt their drinks but if you can deal with that you get a lot of house for your money,” said Nick, who was a pupil at the Skinners School in Tunbridge Wells as a boy.

“You also get a lot of land with the car park, which you can dig up and lay a lawn. So it is good value.

“It is sad pubs are being sold because they are not making money. They are such historic places but so long as the people who take them on renovate them in a sympathetic way they will still look fantastic.”

It is easy to see why Nick has such an affection for the Duke of Wellington. He began his broadcasting career as a journalist at TVS and then Meridian, working from the studios in Vinters Park in Grove Green, now called the Maidstone Studios. He was a regular at several Maidstone drinking holes, stating he was “not backwards in coming forwards in going for a pint”.

He added: “The history of the Duke of Wellington is fascinating because it was a pub in the very oldest sense of the word. It was literally an ale house.

“Its licence to sell ale started out because a change in the law in the 1790s meant local farmers could brew their own beer and sell it in their front room. More people decided to drink beer so the family built the big building to sell the beer. Until the 1960s, it still looked like someone’s front room.

“There were kegs in the beer area and the owner would bring over a jug of ale to your table, like a restaurant. It has a really rustic flavour to it and has a history of eccentrics living there. Simon and Lesley won’t be upset if I said they were eccentric themselves.”

The second series of Nick Knowles’ Original Features is shown on weekdays on Home from Monday, October 17, at 10pm (Sky channel 246, Virgin 265). The first episode features The Duke of Wellington.