Tuesday 10 October 2017

Five cute and cheap chapels to renovate


It's church week... ready, steady WRECK!!
This chapel in Cumbria is possible the cutest little church I've ever come across. That fence for starters.
Only three rooms (though decent sizes): the chapel, a kitchen, and ante room. Lots of gorgeous features - stone and parquet floors, lancet windows and doors (let's just ignore that hole in the floor for now, shall we?).





There isn't much in the way of land - a small front garden and a bit of yard area at the side and back, and that background row of trucks in my Google grab are rolling along the A66.


But you've also got this:


The chapel comes with planning permission for change to residential use, but also a requirement to add a sewerage treatment plant in the front garden (there's only a chemical toilet). Something to bear in mind if you're seeing roses clambering over that fence.
It's is at North Stainmore, a couple of miles from Brough and about four from Kirby Stephen.
On the market through PFK with a guide price of £105k. Details here and here.
Also lacking services but gorgeous regardless, is Lochfyneside Church, in Argyll, Scotland:


Small, cute, possibly derelict (no inside pictures) and with a stunning location overlooking Loch Fyne. However, there's no vehicular access to the site, as well as no sewerage or water. To get planning permission for residential use you'll need plans that deliver that access. The chapel fronts onto a road so whether the issue is building access or buying access isn't clear.
But while you think about that, here's another view (from here):


On the market via the Church of Scotland* at offers around £35k. More here and pdf here.
Dai Lewis estate agent has a couple of pretty chapels on their books, although neither of them come with planning permission for change to residential use. You'd need to check on that.
Gerazin Baptist Church (what a name!) is at Cippyn, about a mile from gorgeous Poppit Sands beach, and in the Pembrokeshire National Park.


One big room - the double-height chapel - plus porch and a couple of storage rooms off, and a large parking area to the side.



It's sold with an over-age clause, so if you do turn it into a house you'll need to pay the chapel trustees 25 percent of any increase in value.
All that aside, it's on the market at offers over £30k. Yep, £30k. Details here.
Dai Lewis also has this chapel, below, in the town of Llandysul.


Not quite on the same prettiness scale, but it does at least have services (there's a kitchen and toilets) and the two-floor layout is more amenable, and it does have a garden. Of sorts.



The Grade II listed Sacred Hands/Ebenezer Chapel is on the market at £95k. Details here.
Finally, I featured Mouswald Church, below, way back in 2012 writing that "even the graveyard doesn't stop it being cute as a button".


At that point the Dumfries lovely was listed on the Church of Scotland's own list of properties for sale* at offers over £40k.
Five years later, church fittings and fixtures have been mostly stripped (and sold...?) and the property is back on the market at the rather heftier "offers over £90k".
It does however now come with planning consent and listed building consent for the switch from house of God to family house. Hmm...
On the market through DGSPC and the CoS, details here, here and pdf here.

*I've previously posted about mentioned the Church of Scotland's property for sale list, and the Church of England's similar list. Always worth a regular browse for church-do-up dreamers.