Two do-ups with big country views

Scrolling through property lists nowadays, mostly what I'm thinking is: "That was a holiday let... that was a holiday let... that was a holiday let...".
You recognise the look - comfy, cushion-y, antique-y, original feature-y. To be honest, there's a lot of lux holiday let influencing my own home decor.
I see-saw on the issue. On the one hand, there's pricing local folk out of the market, on the other there's tourism spending. But the tax loophole the government closed last year (and probably prompted this sell-off rush) needed tackling, and there are now more refurbished homes coming onto the market for buyers wanting views without the work.
At one stage, hubby and I spent weekends driving Northumberland looking for a potential holiday home/holiday let of our own to do-up. Even starting the process of buying one before fuzzy access rights made us pull out. We followed that by buying a do-up on the east coast, planning it as a holiday let but finding we never wanted to leave. So we've stayed.
Anyway, my musing was prompted by coming across another house we almost bought to let (this one) and all the work that's been done since we saw it. It was cute then, cuter now. I remember a friendly neighbour and a steep walk up.
We did love that area, the North Pennines. Wild and snowy on our visits and big, big views.
I'm going to take you there today to show you two quite similar detached do-ups.
Keepers Cottage shows its roots - a stone outbuilding off to the side of the house used to be the kennels for the keeper's working dogs. Now it has a cute metal gate and space for garden furniture.

Inside the house, some works have been done to make it comfortable for whoever followed the keeper. Central heating, a new kitchen, a bathroom added upstairs, but lots more is still as it was - those gorgeous fireplaces for instance.

There are only two bedrooms (one having ceded space for that bathroom), and a grungy downstairs shower room needs to go, but rooms are a good size and the house sits in a decent garden plot with scope for extending to make the most of those quite stunning hill views.

Keepers Cottage is in a good location, among a handful of houses on a country lane, and about half-a-mile from the pretty and active village of Blanchland, with its historic abbey, shops and a popular pub hotel.
On the market through Anton Estates with a guide price of £250k. Details and more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
My second pick also has two-bedrooms and a price tag of £250k, but needs rather more work. This stone cottage however comes with an attached, double height stone byre, outbuildings, and all the views in the world. 

It's pretty remote, a couple of houses nearby in their own private plots, and the nearest place is Allendale (Town) about five miles away.
The attached byre is massive - so much scope there for extending the property (assuming it's all sound) and you've got two other stone buildings and a large timber garage for stores and workshop.

The main house just has the living room, kitchen and a bathroom downstairs, plus a large bedroom and not great (ceiling shape) spare bedroom upstairs. And, OML, what's with the dark wood ceilings?!

You're going to need to be able to chip in a fair bit of cash and time to turn this property into one that's worthy of that location and those gorgeous views.
On the market through Andrew Coulson at £250k. Details, more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here (including video tour).
All the while I've been working on this post, I've had a earworm. I think it's those big views and thinking about our drives up and up through those vast northern hills.

In a big country, dreams stay with you, like a lover's voice fires the mountainside. Stay alive.

RIP Stuart Adamson.

Remote homes with lots of land

I was felled by a runaway dachshund on the prom a few days ago. All very 70s sitcom.
Which has meant me being stuck at home nursing a face that could scare horses and small children.
But today, the bruises have faded, the scabs are gradually falling off, and I'm itching to be out walking. 
Which is why I've found myself picking properties to show you with BIG walking potential and NO chance of errant dachshunds. Because with these picks, you own all the land.
Clydach Dingle, in the Brecon Beacons national park near the town of Brynmawr, comes with what may be a Wreck of Week record of a massive 32 acres of land. 

It's not just a dilapidated farmhouse, it's a farmhouse that was three dilapidated cottages.
Plus the remains of what had been a Welsh mining hamlet - ruins of homes, a pub, cobbled street, the mine building and sealed off coal seam.
Further back in time, Clydach Dingle had been the last staging post before the crossing over the mountain to Crickhowell and the Black Mountains, its stone barn housing weary horses.
If history's your thing, you would own 32 acres of it here.

Anyway, since then practical rather than perhaps historically sensitive works have squished three homes into one and that too has deteriorated over time. The property comes with planning permission to meld everything together with the horse barn and create something snazzier.
But, looking at the planning decision (plans included a shelter for wild horses!!), permission was granted way back in 2020 and would have expired last September unless works have kept it active?
That's not clear from the property info and makes the £400k asking price a bit of a punt. Which may also partly explain its 18months on the market.
The ref by the way is 20/18812/FUL via the Beacons national park planning portal.
The plans were for a four bedroom, two bathroom house, with a large open plan kitchen, living, dining area, a separate snug and a large bootroom. Which all sounds hunky dory but clearly whoever planned those plans, pre-Covid and pre-double-Trump, didn't get a great deal further than the on-site caravan in their renovation dream.

Honestly I get that - if I had 32 acres in this gloriously wild bit of the UK, I could easily spend 15 years just walking it, planting it, and looking for wild horses.
On the market through agents James Dean at £400k. Details and more pictures from the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
My next pick is even more remote and therefore carries even less dachshund danger - an island off a bigger island.

Now normally I wouldn't show you land-only properties on Wreck, particularly land overseen by a fairly territorial set of planning officers and local councillors who have so far rejected both plans for a tourism business and plans for a low-impact, off-grid, sustainable home.
Perhaps they're hoping for wild horses too?
But I'm showing you this because, well, we don't often get to consider private islands and because if you dream of a living and working space surrounded by water, you'll find your way through this particular island's gatekeepers.

Eilean Loch Oscair is off the coast of the Scottish island of Lismore in the Inner Hebrides' Firth of Lorne. Access is by your own boat (or helicopter) from Lismore's ports and there's sheltered mooring on the island. A ferry links Lismore and Oban.
The island is just under ten acres of designated croft land, uninhabited by livestock or people. There's an island spring supplying water but no services beyond that.
It puts me in mind of the Isle of Jura and the "extremely un-get-able place" where George Orwell hunkered down to write Nineteen Eighty-Four, and of Craig Easton's wonderful photobook.

Eilean Loch Oscair too feels like a place to write, to create, to rewild. Beautiful.
On the market through Knight Frank at offers over £125k. Details on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.

Jumbly gems from Scotland's less popular coast

Some years ago, hubby, hounds and I were on our way to the Isle of Mull for a much-needed holiday. We were big fans of the Scottish island, having married there (here) and returned often. This particular trip however was a bit of bust.
God-awful weather meant ferries stayed safely in ports and we spent three days arguing in the carpark at Oban over whether to wait or go, as our precious holiday days ticked away.
After one particularly blistering row that saw me storm off into the wind and rain and return to the car  dripping-wet and weepy, we set off driving.
And drove and drove, through gales that knocked down power lines as we passed, snow storms that hid roads from us. Passing sea and lochs and mountains, all the way to Ullapool. One night hunkered down in a cottage that had lost its power. Another in a lodge where we temporarily lost a dog to the forest.
We've all had holidays like this; endurance tests that morph over the remembering into fondness.
Anyway, where I'm going with this is that what we took away from that experience was a real appreciation for the overlooked Northwest of Scotland - Oban to Ullapool.
We hadn't planned to holiday there, not as obviously pretty as the islands we normally chose, more working, less tourism. But ruggedly wild, sometimes rundown, frequently beautiful. 
So I'm taking you there this week with two house picks for fellow explorers.
This four-bedroom, two-bathroom detached house on the shores of Loch Etive, is about eight miles from Oban. It needs work (including a new roof) but its location - loch-side but on the coast road, is quite gorgeous. That picture at the top of this post sums it up.

There's an integrated garage leading off the road and off-road parking. The property, all one level, has a large living room and kitchen, another reception room, three good-size bedrooms overlooking the loch and a smaller bedroom facing the road.

To be fair, the rooms are a bit of a jumble of spaces and hallways and having your bedrooms rather than living areas face the views seems daft - you'll want to change that.
On the market through Bell Ingram with a guide price of £260k. Details, video and more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here. 
My second pick is much further up that north western coast, at Achiltibuie, around 15miles on from Ullapool, looking over Loch Broom towards the Summer Isles.
A similarly large and jumbly-roomed house, this one is split into two, with a three bedroom main house and attached one-bedroom annex. Before I get onto that complexity, here's some pictures.

So, we have the main house with that extraordinary sunroom off the living room. A large-ish kitchen, a bedroom and shower room downstairs, and two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The separate annex (the attached cottage in the picture below) has a living room, bedroom, shower room, and narrow and damp galley kitchen downstairs, plus a large loft. 

I like that its owner was crafty - all that varnished wood, all those painted seascapes; someone enjoyed their life here. Not sure I'd keep any of it though...
Clearly a lot of work to do in stripping back, changing configurations and turning this into a living, breathing eco-house, but the under £200k price tag will help.
What it offers in return is a house plus holiday let (or multi-family) in a wildly lovely hidden corner of Scotland.
On the market at offers over £170k through Bell Ingram. Details, video and lots more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
Here's Robin Wallace, to take us on a breezy hike around the area.