TUCKED away in an idyllic setting not far from Wroughton Parish Church, Legge House doesn’t have an especially high profile.

Mark and Sheila Tubey are always happy to talk about its work, though.

“Legge House,” said Mark, “is the original Victorian school which in the 1960s, when the new schools were built, was converted into a youth residential centre.”

A photo in the foyer shows Princess Margaret arriving to perform the official opening.

Mark added: “The idea is that it provides facilities whereby young people can experience time away from home and grow spiritually, physically and educationally.

“The people that come are either brought by schools, by church youth groups or by uniformed organisations like the Brownies and the Guides.”

The charity work is partly funded by renting out rooms for conferences and meetings.

Legge House is owned by the Diocese of Bristol and managed by Wroughton Youth Adventure Charity.

Mark and Sheila are devout Christians, but Legge House is open to all.

For the couple, the greatest job satisfaction often comes from simple things.

Sheila said: “It’s when you’ve got a young girl standing at the door while you’re washing the floor, and she says it’s the first time she’s been away from home and she’s really enjoying it.

“Or a corporate man coming in here and saying, ‘I came here with my youth group’ or ‘I came here when I was eight or nine with my family or the church’.

“We don’t know what seeds are being sown.”

Mark said: “It’s one of those things you can’t quantify. It makes them more of a whole person, it broadens their experience, it broadens their flexibility.

“Programmes here vary. Some enjoy just having space. For example, social services – until funding cuts – used us each year. They would bring a group of children in care out. They would just have time away from their normal environments.

“We’ve had young carers here, just having time to be themselves without having to worry about caring for parents or whatever.

“Otherwise all groups use this as a base for going out to places like Avebury.”

The couple grew up six miles apart in Reading but didn’t meet until the age of 17 when their respective youth groups attended a Christian youth weekend in High Wycombe.

Mark and Sheila were married in 1982. Mark taught English and RE and Sheila was a nurse. They lived in Milton Keynes.

At the turn of the 1990s Mark began working for the Church of England in Leicester.

“I was employed to run a church community centre and I was diocesan adviser to voluntary groups, so I would be going into organisations, joining their management committees on behalf of the diocese, offering advice and practical support.

“That’s also where I qualified as a minister. I became a licensed lay minister, and so I had the full range of parish work. I was unusual in that I was a stipendiary reader, so I was clergy in everything but being ordained.”

Their youngest child had suffered a brain injury following a prolonged fit, meaning they needed jobs combining work with a home environment.

Sheila said: “We were joint wardens of a place in Suffolk. We took children on their first time away from home, from London and Colchester for a week and church groups at weekends.

“We had a farm. Fourteen and a half acres of grounds. The neighbours would look after the cows. We had our own sheep each year and all the bottle fed lambs came to us. We had a donkey, goats.”

Youngsters were sent by the church and education authorities. Sheila remembers one teacher poignantly telling her: “If they were running around like that at home they would have the police after them.”

She also recalls the joy and astonishment of visitors who had never been away from cities and towns. These included a deputy headteacher who hadn’t realised fresh eggs would be warm. “She was so excited,” said Sheila.

Mark and Sheila left the centre after three years, and it thrives to this day.

Their next post was at a Methodist International House in Bristol, where they would remain for a dozen years. Its mission was to promote international, interfaith fellowship, and it was home to people ranging from religious groups to parties of foreign doctors on training courses.

“It was a home from home for them. They had their own study bedrooms but they shared communal areas and a communal kitchen.”

As with Suffolk, the couple helped countless people and built a store of happy memories.

There was the teacher from St Lucia, for example, whose best friend in Bristol was an African woman, and who vowed to do her bit to tackle anti-African prejudice on returning home.

Sheila fondly remembers the resident who asked to ‘borrow’ her son to watch videos with, as watching videos with her own child was her way of relaxing back in her home country.

“The good thing about it,” Sheila added, “was that it was a total mix of religions, as well. We would celebrate Diwali, we would celebrate Eid, we would celebrate the Buddhist New Year and the Christian festivals. They all shared with each other.”

In 2010 the Methodist Church closed the Bristol operation and Mark and Sheila planned on taking a break before getting what they assumed would be more conventional jobs.

“We had given up looking for a job like this,” said Sheila. “We’d decided that perhaps we’d go back to our house in Milton Keynes. We had not lived there for 20 years. We were going to make it nice for us and we would see what happened.”

What happened, however, was that they then saw an advert for a manager and assistant manager at Legge House. The couple have been there since 2011, and use the same combination of compassion and practicality that served them before.

Mark said: “I believe in firm but fair leadership. If you look after your team they look after you. If you look after your clients they in return will tell others about you. Our slogan is to make quality time possible.”

Legge House, whose website is leggehouse.com, always welcomes enquiries from potential helpers, donors and supporters.