A bid to gain listed status for the former home of children's author CS Lewis has been rejected by the Government.

The author and Oxford don, best known for his Tales of Narnia, spent 33 years at The Kilns in Lewis Close, Risinghurst, until his death in 1963.

The California-based CS Lewis Foundation bought The Kilns in the 1980s for £130,000 and has restored it to its original 1930s appearance.

The organisation recently applied for the home to be listed. The application was backed by English Heritage, but the Department of Culture, Media and Sport has turned it down.

Listed status would give the bungalow added protection if developers acquired it and proposed demolition.

The DCMS told the foundation that the building was not of the highest architectural interest.

City councillor Colin Cook said: "The DCMS might feel that the building is not worth listing but perhaps they need to consider who actually lived there. There is a growing interest in children's literature and it would be nice if the DCMS could have a look at this again.

"The department has probably taken the view that as the building is not under threat, listing is not necessary."

Members of the public can take tours of The Kilns, organised by the CS Lewis Foundation, which currently rents the building to six tenants.

No-one from the foundation was available for comment, but tenant Emma Rendell said: "We heard that the foundation applied for listed status.

"It would be nice if it could get it."

The author of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe was a tutor at Magdalen College, Oxford, for 30 years, and in 1998 a plaque was unveiled in his honour in Addison's Walk.

He strolled there almost daily, and a centenary stone bears the poem he wrote about the riverside walk.

The film Shadowlands, which was shot in Oxford in the early 1990s, led to an explosion of interest in CS Lewis, who was a friend of Lord Of The Rings author Tolkien.

Kathryn Hinchcliffe, a spokesman for the DCMS, said: "The Secretary of State, Tessa Jowell, chose not to list The Kilns because the house was not extraordinary in terms of its design or form.

"Buildings can be listed on the basis of their history, but there have to be architectural reasons as well."