First volume of an apparently very well-known series of children's books. It is British and is vaguely reminiscent of the Narnia books. Three children, rather than four, removed from their usual setting to a mysterious old house in Cornwall. While exploring the house, they discover a map, not a doorway to another universe. The setting here is Arthurian legend rather than Christian allegory, and the Arthurian aspect is rather lightly addressed.
The children are much in the company of their odd, but beloved, Great Uncle Merry, also known as Gumerry (wasn't it a Shoes book by Noel Streatfield where the child or children had a Great Uncle Matthew known as Gum?). Gumerry sets them off on a quest to follow the treasure map (of course, it is a treasure map) to find an Arthurian artifact lost for 900 years. There are evil villains and rotten people and at the end we are left to wonder who Gumerry is really - a question which will doubtless be addressed in the remaining four books in the "sequence" (not series). A minor curiosity is that the series is known by the title of the second book, not the first.
It is quite well done, and I had never heard of it until I found all five volumes in a box of my younger daughter's books. The mystery left to me is why a look up of Susan Cooper referred me to Diana Wynne Jones, whose books aforementioned daughter did insist that I read.
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