Tuesday 27 March 2012

Two chapels, a water tower and waterworks for sale (but, ssh!, the factory's a secret)

Two emails prompted me to dig around commercial property lists today for buried treasures.
One was from Karl and Natalie, they of the mammoth church restoration project previously featured on WOW, and the other from a work colleague who is about to put the family's house on the market in order to buy a factory.
Karl wrote of the church above: "An interesting property near me, it catches my eye every time I drive past. If I had the money I would add it to my collection!"
The Bethel Chapel, on Welshpool Road, Newtown, is up for sale at a recently reduced price of £200k. There's limited information here (scroll down the page).
My friend Jackie, her artist husband and their two teenage sons are hoping to sell up and move into this former factory:

The second floor is a three-bedroom, open-plan flat; the ground floor is 1700sqft of workshop area, plus 600sqft of basement for a nifty under £80k. I'd tell you where it is but she'd never speak to me again if one of you lot stepped in and bought it!
So instead, how about this majestic 1920s former waterworks in Lancaster with .76acre at offers c£250k? Or this dinky water tower in countryside near Harrogate, up for auction with a guide price of £7-£10k, or this sweet former Baptist church (pdf) in Crowle village, near Scunthorpe, reduced to £50k? Happy now?


Tuesday 6 March 2012

Desperately seeking Cornwall

So what is it about Cornwall? Something going on down there that I don't know about?
I've had two WOW fans email me, both looking for a Cornish 'wreck' to stamp their mark on.
Glen, a carpenter builder, and his family are desperate to leave their east London home and move to Cornwall (or Devon) where they dream of renovating a house and starting a business.
He told me he'd looked at over 30 properties: "My mum and dad's dream is to have a small campsite somewhere rural which needs work. But they are becoming very depressed as we have been looking for over a year now with two houses falling through last minute."
Sonet emailed me from South Africa. She and her husband are reluctantly selling up and leaving the beautiful house they renovated in SA (pictured above) to move in with relatives in Cornwall while they look for their own Cornish 'wreck'.
They have very little money but they've already renovated one 'wreck' themselves and, as Sonet said: "We just love creating something out of nothing."
So - anyone out there selling a 'wreck' in or close to Cornwall? Drop me an email and I'll pass it on.