Two southern 'wrecks' with potential

Have I mentioned that I'm writing a book about 18th century women journalists? I've a way to go yet, but my reason for raising it is that, because of the book, I found myself in a webinar about research at Chawton House, one of Jane Austen's* haunts.
Which is my very convoluted introduction to why I decided to look for wrecks to show you around Chawton, Steventon and other Austen Hampshire locations.
Anyway, that was a mistake.
Oh my Lordy, Lord you southerners pay megabucks for your homes!! 
Those Austen villages are way too London-accessible for affordability, and the bigger locations - Bath, Southampton, Winchester were equally costly and wreck-free. 
Which is by way of an apology from me for giving up on the Austen thingy and simply showing you two interesting southern picks.
Although I will start with this one in Southampton, where Jane did live for a time.

Two reception rooms, kitchen and hall downstairs, three bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. The front room and main bedroom are particularly gorgeous with those sweeping curved bays. 

The third bedroom and bathroom small but not massively so - although I'm choosing not to show you a picture of the bathroom; you might be eating you lunch.
Good size gardens and drive and all of it in the posh and green suburb of Upper Shirley.

Clearly in need of a lot of work, which is one reason it's up for auction rather than straightforward sale. And remember that means a chunky auction premium added to the sold price.
However, lots of potential here and really well-shaped and attractive property.
On the market through Town and Country Auctions with a guide price of £275k. More details on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
My second pick is also up for auction and, unusually for 'Wreck', a semi- rather than detached house, but like the Southampton house, there's something really attractive about it's shape and look.

This is in Essex rather than Jane's Hampshire, but I think Ms Austen could vibe an Essex girl attitude.
Three storeys - the top floor being two attic rooms that, well, need a lot of work shall we say?

Below that is the first floor with three good size bedrooms (no bathroom), and the ground floor has two reception rooms, hall, large kitchen (and walk-in pantry) and the shower room.

Outside are beautiful large gardens and basically plant a few roses around those doors and you've got yourself a very Austen, gorgeous English country cottage.
Obviously apart from all those pre-rose planting repairs, renovations and unexpected scary bits.

The house is one of just two farm cottages down a private lane in the little Essex village of Chignall Smealy, about four miles from Chelmsford.
Up for sale through Clive Emson with a guide price of £285k, plus the buyers premium. Details and more pictures on the agent's site here, and on Rightmove here.

*No, Jane Austen isn't one of the women I'm writing about, but she was influenced by some of them. Chawton House has an amazing library of early women's writing, plus talks published to YouTube and a thriving academic residency programme. Which may or may not be anything like this one...

Houses with attached barns to renovate

OML it’s windy! I live in an on-the-edge (in all ways) bit of the UK so we do get all the weather all the days, but this week’s dog walks have been a real test of mine and the hound’s core strength.
Anyway I’m home, with the radio, hot coffee and a sleeping greyhound, and ready to show you my picks for this week - two cozy-potential wrecks for weathering storms.
Starting with this super-cute cottage in the Scottish Highlands.
Scotland does weather, and its Highlands and Islands homes are classically wide and squat, solid and hunkered in their exposed landscape.
What they do less well is “modernising” those homes. Like this one, replacing heavy wooden doors with plastic ones, covering permeable stone walls with moisture-trapping concrete render. It’s something I’ve been banging on about through two decades of 'Wreck'.
The cottage is in a small crofting community, just outside the small port town of Aultbea. It is in an absolutely beautiful part of the world, with views of the sea but up a hill and along a lane from it.

Downstairs is the living room, separate dining room, galley kitchen and rear porch. Upstairs two loft bedrooms and a bathroom.

The rooms downstairs would benefit from some reshaping, plenty of scope to merge the dining room and kitchen for example, even if you didn't want to integrate that almost-attached stone bothan (bothy).

Outside, as well as that bothan there's a less solid-looking byre and the property comes with half-an-acre of land plus small garden areas to the front and back and parking space. 
All in all, a gorgeous detached cottage with outbuildings and land, on the market at offers over £150k.
Details and more pictures through the agent, Bell Ingram, on their site here and on Rightmove here.

My next pick is also a chunky stone house with a barn and views, but 352 miles south of Aultbea.
This three-storey house in the Lake District is in the centre of the quiet village of Helton, a mile from popular Askham and around five miles from Penrith.

The house is on the market for cash buyers only given the "renovation" that needs doing, but more probably given the unlikelihood of getting a mortgage on that undercroft/basement area. This property needs a buyer and a builder who knows what they're doing.

But crikey it has potential. I'm completely in love with its gardens and the views from the rear are just gorgeous.

The ground floor has a large kitchen, through lounge and hall. Upstairs are three bedrooms (one quite small) and a bathroom.

The basement has two big rooms/stores, accessed from those garden doors and from the kitchen.
I'll be honest, that basement scares me, not because of the work needed but because I've watched way too many films starring evil basements.
There's also a large - very large - double-height attached barn and, all in all, a lot of walls for the money.

On the market with a (cash only) guide price of £400k through Britton Estates. Details and more pictures and video on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
I was thinking I might finish with a scary basement video, but that wouldn't be fair to the property - or to you, perhaps. Instead, I'll finish with the magnificent Kate out on the wily, windy Moors.

And, for Wuthering Heights fans everywhere, a reminder that the 2026 Most Wuthering Heights Day will take place across dozens of locations globally in July. Get your red frock out : )

Homes with old or new business potential

Well, here I go again stepping outside of my usual picks for 'Wreck', but in a world in flux there's power in flex. Which is a pretty pompous way of saying I've selected three semi-commercial properties for you this week instead of my usual detached wreck on a plot.
Of course live/work properties have been around forever and long, long before we started building them into planning categories. Half a century before I had my first garden office, my nana was baking her legendary breadcakes twice a week and selling them from her front door to queues of neighbours.
These three properties are many steps up from that sort of home working but all offer a more quirky challenge for renovators and lifestyle changers.
I'm going to start at the very top of the price and scale range with this large house plus possible holiday let plus museum plus tearoom plus gift shop plus six acres of land on Scotland's Isle of Mull.
Torr A’ Chlachainn House is an extended, detached house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs (one ensuite) and a bedroom and bathroom within the downstairs extension. The rooms in the original house are bit small and awkward and could do with some rethinking, and obviously updating.

The Old Byre Heritage Centre is a large, two-storey building with tearoom and giftshop on the ground floor and the museum, on Mull's history and heritage, on the upper floor. It's cute, but no lift and accessibility is something you'll want to think about if you want to keep the museum (its contents will cost you extra).

There's an odd part-storage, part Ballamory-themed play area outbuilding, and the two storey, one-bedroom Wee Bothy. There are gardens, a field currently rented out for dog training, woodland and carparking.

On the market at offers over £695k through Bell Ingram, details and more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
My next pick is a house with attached bakery and baker's shop in the lovely North Yorkshire village of Reeth, in Swaledale.

And, so we're clear, those are breadcakes on that counter. Not rolls, not barmcakes, not baps.
The house itself is pretty chunky - four bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs; sitting room and two kitchens downstairs, plus a small dining room that's been turned into a (sort-of) tea room.

Next to that is the shop plus the bakery and prep room, with a courtyard garden and stone outbuilding.
Again, not the best configuration if you want to continue the bakery and tearoom business (you've got competition) and you could definitely do much more with all that upstairs space.

However, it's in a good, central position in a popular Yorkshire Dales village, so lots of potential.
On the market at offers over £315k through Alderson Estate Agents. Details and more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
The final property I want to show you is has the lowest price but the biggest challenge. Hell, it's current planning permission means you can't even live there yourself - you'll be renovating it as a holiday let. Maybe you could do something heritage-tourist or eco-business with the ground floor..??

It's a 16th century ex-watermill in the Cumbrian Lake District. Very, very beautiful on the outside, very much a wreck on the inside.

Widewath Mill isn't listed but that hasn't prevented Lake District National Park planners from setting some pretty tough conditions - it's taken three years for this project to get approved.
On the upside, you do at least know that everyone who could possibly get to comment has had their say, including the bats.
The plans are designed to protect the mill's mechanics and gubbins while wrapping around a high-end one bedroom holiday let. The two-storey mill plus separate stone barn sits on a long, narrow plot that includes the section of river feeding the mill.
So, we're talking carefully renovating a non-mortgageable but beautiful bit of Cumbrian industrial heritage in a protected area of countryside and then charging others to holiday there.
On the market at a cash buyer only guide price of £200k via David Britton. Details, videos and pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.