Two coastal do-ups - £700k apart in price

So this week's post had been due to go in a different direction - Cornwall, I'd been thinking. But then my daughter dropped this Robin Hood's Bay property into the family WhatsApp group. One of those wow! and what if...! moments that is the soul of 'Wreck', and we're back in North Yorkshire. Cornwall can wait.
Ings House is a massive, eight-bedroom, four reception, house with attached double-storey storage/garages and a separate coach house. All stone-built, original floors, windows, fires and all round gorgeous.
Here's some pictures of the downstairs rooms.

Upstairs, there are six bedrooms plus two bathrooms on the first floor and two further bedrooms on the third floor. Some are pretty small and the two bathrooms (one is an ensuite) are a bit poky. You'll want to re-jig and that'll mean reducing bedroom numbers to add ensuites. Perhaps creating three bedroom suites with bathrooms on the first floor and two suites on the second floor, using more of the loft space?

Outside is a large garden, courtyard and parking. Plus that extra coach house. That, plus that double-height storage space to the side of the house offers lots of possibilities for creating an even larger house or, more, likely, splitting it into three separate properties. Which may lie behind the hefty price tag.

The Coach House already has planning approval to turn it into a separate holiday home and next door to you is a rather smart B&B, whose website includes some useful drone shots of its neighbour and both houses' coastal position.
Ings House is on Station Road - the town's main road through and to the sea and down the hill to the older part. That older part is really just for the holidaymakers now; a sort-of Haworth by the sea with streams of visitors trudging down and up again. This house is close enough but far enough away, albeit missing the views perhaps.
On the market through Croft with a guide price of £800k. They're offering two open days for viewings - this Saturday and next. Some additional info and pictures on the agent's website here and on Rightmove here.
Given we've spent so much time with our £800k mansion, I thought I'd take us to the other end of the scale with this cute 1930s detached holiday bungalow just outside Filey for offers around £100k.

This one intrigued me. So much expected information missing.
It's on the edge of the large and popular Primrose Valley holiday park, but isn't owned by them. Your bungalow, your land. But the actual legal position is fuzzy. The agent believes it's freehold (they describe it as 'freehold') but it hasn't been registered with the Land Registry, albeit two of its younger neighbours have. You would need to register it. It would also be worth paying the £14 to see the restrictions attached to one of your neighbours, in case they also apply here.
The agent has set a closing date for offers, but your starting point should be a phonecall to them and questions. Because the other thing that's missing are internal photos. 
Normally, that would stop me adding it to 'Wreck' but they have added a video walk through and, while they spend a LONG time filming the outside of the bungalow and its location (both gorgeous, by the way) they do eventually go inside and it's well, ok - sort-of what you'd expect from an old bungalow  that's been empty a while and north coast weather battered.
There is no inside bathroom - just a shower in the outside toilet block. Two bedrooms, lounge and narrow kitchen. Anyway, I thought I'd add that video because I found myself quite mesmerised by it. 

See what I mean? If you've ever played Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, this video was so there!
No. 2 The Fold, is on the market at around £100k via Nicholsons Property Group - offers by informal tender with a closing date of 19th June. Details on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.

Two big houses in (sort-of) middle England

A lot of my posts are about outside edges. Properties that are located just outside villages, on hills and in wilder lands, on Britain's raggedy edges of coastline. I think it comes from having Hull as my hometown - my dad always said you only go through Hull to reach the rest of the world.
Which started me thinking about why I rarely feature properties in the middle of the UK. To be fair, I did live in the Midlands for about ten years, in Staffordshire. I felt land-locked.  
I started by consulting Wikipedia (obvs...) on what is the centre of the UK and, it's complicated.
Sort of depends on what you define as Britain's edges - our farthest islands or only the mainlands? And whether you use a flattened-out map or measure distances between borders (land or sea?). 
Anyway, Wikipedia lists nine possibles, depending on the calculations used, and none of them are the ones (Haltwhistle, Meridian or Morton) that have been claiming centre point status for decades. 
My favourite in the Wikipedia list is the wonderfully imprecise "field south of Calderstone Partnership NHS Trust, near Whalley, Lancashire" as the centre of Great Britain's mainland. So I'm going to start there. 
Couldn't find anything Wreck-worthy in Whalley itself, but the town is in the Ribble Valley and within a couple of miles you're in Pendle's hills. A glorious area and a bit of a footballer magnet.
The two properties I've chosen to show you have much in common - detached, five bedrooms, promising outbuildings, some land. Both on the market at offers over £450k (this bit of Lancashire isn't cheap), but in very different but equally attractive locations - a town house and a country house.
Town house first. 
North Bank House is in the Pleckgate area of Blackburn. Pleckgate, according to the agent's blurb is popular and prestigious - not sure what that means, but it does have a good school.

Downstairs are two good-size reception rooms and hall, plus two narrow rooms (one the kitchen) and a shower room. Upstairs are five bedrooms and a bathroom. It could all do with a bit of jiggle around rooms-wise, but lots of possibilities.

Added to those possibilities are the two storey, three-roomed outbuilding and that half-acre of garden.
Do we think this was the old-chap-gone's model railway/bus station hobby room, btw?

On the market through Stones Young at £450k. Details, more pictures and video tour on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
My country house pick is the unfortunately-named Higher Buttock Farm in the hills above the village of Barley, in Pendle.

Gorgeous views, large garden to front (albeit with a public footpath through) and large, stepped garden to rear. 
Again, a little bit of a jaggle of rooms across it's wide length, but lots of options.
Downstairs are two reception rooms, a good-size kitchen, family bathroom and the "library" which would be a great contender for a grander new entrance hall. While the attached stone garage could be an annex or an extension. 

If North Bank House carries the echoes of its gentleman owner's retirement, Higher Buttock Farm showcases its lady owner's life and hobbies - crafting, cooking, reading, gardening.
Matching mobility scooters too; this pair would not go gently into their good nights.

On the market through Fine and Country at offers over £450k. Details, more pictures and video on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.

A mansion and a chapel - little and large do-ups

We have a greyhound. A very tall, long-nosed and lolloping greyhound. And, maybe this is just greyhounds or maybe it's the same for all big tall dogs, but snub-nosed little dogs just can't walk past him without having a go. Same on this morning's walk.
Of course Paddy ignores them but those little dogs, they just don't care that they're knee-high to him, that their head couldn't fill his mouth. Thank God dogs aren't humans with our capacity for cruelty and ambition and weapon-building.
But this morning's little and large encounter is the inspiration for today's post and my two property picks. Both in Scotland and one - and my apologies for this, with a deadline of tomorrow for offers.
Let's start with the greyhound-sized property.
Dunolly House is in Aberfeldy, in Perthshire. It sits off the A827, in a quiet area of mostly detached Victorian villas, backed by Aberfeldy's hills and the River Tay. Ed Sheeran wrote a very pretty song (with a very weird video) about it. Aberfeldy that is, not Dunolly House.

The house itself is massive. A former girls' hostel (hence the fire escapes and the extra wing) attached to the local Academy school, it's a Category C-listed 1890s mansion with fuzzy links to Queen Victoria.
In October 2024, planning and listed building consents were given to turn it into eight apartments and some works have been done to that end. What's lovely about what has been done so far is that they've clearly tried to hang onto its best Victorian features. Here's some pictures.

See what I mean? Pretty impressive. The Rapunzel-esque tower has had a new roof, windows and gutters have had work, dry rot done, and general clearing and stripping back ready for work. 
And of course, those eight apartment plans could be changed. Or you could build them and fill them with family and friends, or people who like greyhounds. 
Outside is around half an acre of garden area, courtyard and parking.

On the market through Bell Ingram at offers over £360k. Details, more pictures and video on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.

My pug dog sized choice is the one with the deadline. 
Manish Church at Manish, on the Isle of Harris's coastline, is being sold by the Church of Scotland at offers over £50k.

B-listed (so more restrictive than Dunolly House's C-listing) and a few decades older dating from 1853. Manish church is one big, single storey chapel with a small vestry and a loo (accessed from outside - bracing!!). There's mains electricity and water, but no septic tank.
And obviously no planning permission in place at that price.

Unusually for a church sale it comes with more than its footprint in terms of land. There's a good size garden area around it and parking to the front, accessed from the road.

It's clearly been well cared for, the brochure (here) shows lots of well polished pews and hoovered carpets. 

But it's the location that really blows you away (probably literally). Sitting at the tip of Loch Fleoideabhaigh as it heads out to sea, surrounded by Harris's hills and wild geology. And a handful of neighbours.
Here's as close as Google's cars went - the church is towards the end of this winding road.

On the market at offers over £50k and subject to approval by church committees. If you're interested, you need a Scottish solicitor to send the CoS lawyers an email before noon on Friday (instructions in the brochure). More on the CoS site here and on Rightmove here.

Here's lolloping Paddy before I go. See you next Thursday : )