Wreck of the Week

I'm in a mood for some serious renovation porn today and I've found a Scottish castle, an English mansion and a Welsh island to show you. Breachacha Castle (above) on the Hebridean Isle of Coll was built in 1750 for the chief of the Clan Maclean. It is brim-full of history, surrounded by gorgeous views, and sits above one of Coll's sandy beaches. The current owners bought it in 2006 and have spent the past 10 years securing the building and working with conservationists on immediate restoration work. They're now having to sell (that's got to be a wrench, just look at this view...) and presumably hoping the buyers will continue to care for and restore this gorgeous chunk of Scottish history. The Georgian castle is about the right size as castles go (yes, I do believe there is a 'good' castle size), which means lots of space and rooms, but so many that you need to wander the corridors with a pocket full of bread crumbs. The sellers have b...

Let's talk wrecks. Tumbling-walls, greenery-clothed, rain-soaked wrecks. My three picks today are at different stages of wreckiness and definitely a step beyond your average do-up. Starting with this former school in Suffolk . The Old School was built in 1872 and closed during the war, it's been abandoned since then. Seventy years later, the Johnsons have had outline plans drawn up and approved to turn it into a three-bed home and it's on the market at £160k. The Old School is in the tiny village of Redlingfield , around four miles from the market town of  Eye and seven from Diss. It's basically the school hall with its two entrances, sitting on a reasonable-size plot of land in a pretty setting. Here's how it looked in its glory days: Here's the school today: I do hate to see lovely buildings neglected by their owners. On the market through Durrants with a guide price of £160k. More here  and here . Reader Ollie told me ...

This gorgeous former school was sent to me by reader Lyn, who tipped me off that this Grade II listed building at Ryde, on the lovely Isle of Wight, was finally on the market. Vectis Hall, was built in 1812 and was originally the first free school in Ryde, according to Historic England . In the Ryde Conservation Appraisal of 2011, it was listed as "a building of considerable historic interest", albeit already empty and semi-derelict by then. The building had been used in the past for dances and events but various local bids to stop the hall's owners' from leaving it to rot had floundered, despite the actions of local pressure groups and compulsory repairs notices from the council. The last attempt to get the owners to repair  the hall was made a couple of months before it was put on the market. It's a sad story I hear time and again from my readers, of wonderful, historic buildings in their area neglected by private owners and mishandled by local devel...