Country homes to renovate in Lincolnshire

Have I mentioned Tony in Austria before? Actually, he's Tony in Leicester now as, after two years of trying, he and Mrs Tony have now sold their beautiful Austrian mountain home and moved back to the UK to search for a Lincolnshire wreck.
I'm telling you this as preamble to the properties I'm going to show you today because over that time of trying to sell, Tony sent me a string of funny emails chronicling their efforts to find a buyer, while also sending me sometimes amazing and sometimes crazy properties he'd come across. Several of which I've featured in the past.
So here are some selections for Tony and Mrs Tony - and for all of you who might be looking in and around Lincolnshire.
This pretty semi - above and below - was sent by Sophie (thank you). I'm not a fan of semis generally but this has lovely big rooms and an ENORMOUS garden with fab, open views. Plenty of space for chickens : )

There are three bedrooms, two reception rooms, kitchen and pantry/store. The bathroom is downstairs (don't think abut what those ducks are flying away from...) and there's hot water but no central heating.

It's in the Wolds village of Saxby All Saints, with decent access to the A15.
Also, can I point out the cottage is called Ponderosa.

On the market at £200k through Paul Fox. More here and here and PDF here.
My second pick is also a semi, but rather grander looking.

This old-lady-gone property is in Cranwell Village - also nicely positioned for the A15.
Three large bedrooms upstairs. A downstairs bathroom again, but good sized living room and kitchen/diner.

And, as with all my picks this week, a lovely big garden.

This property, on Sleaford Road, also has a large driveway and two garages. Plenty of space for chickens and hobbies.
On the market through Winkworth at £190k. More here and here.
When the estate agent's blurb describes "close proximity to the Oil refinery and Immingham Docks" as part of the sales pitch, I worry.
None-the-less, this pretty detached house in the village of North Killingham, about 6km from Immingham, has some rather more appealing features. Like a village green-sized garden.

The house itself is decent size - three bedrooms and bathroom upstairs, two reception rooms and kitchen/diner downstairs. Dated rather than decrepit, and nice, light rooms.

Plus a useful attached two room workshop/store.

On the market through Paul Fox at £190k. More here and here. Brochure (with postcode) here.
Finally, Manna House, near Market Rasen is still on the market:

 I featured it back in April, and previously in 2013. Gorgeous building with serious renovation issues (and not helped by the current agent, Savills, not providing internal pix).
On the market with a guide price of £250k and clearly not selling at that price. More here.
Finally, if you'd like to hear Tony's own renovation story. I've pasted bits below from his early emails.

I could fill a few blogs with my ventures – various updating jobs (the odd wall down here or there, the odd wall build there and here etc. extensions, barn conversion, 3 story Georgian detached conversion, Burnley stone terraced and another end of terrace that were in various stages of neglect. Austrian venture 1, a 12 bedroom B and B where the previous owners walked out leaving the pipes and boiler to freeze, with the added fun of finding the asylum seekers (they didn’t enjoy the same level of accommodation as tourists, or the old people’s home it had also been) had wired in sockets for heating or cooking in their rooms using the lighting circuits. French house – formerly completely messed up by an idiot English chap who thought he could renovate a traditional wattle and daub house but just hid the mess he had made, and managed to nearly electrocute me by his amazing wiring job. Lincolnshire cottage, back to walls and windows. Austrian venture 2, renovation and walls up and down. This latest Austrian house is going to leave me with little for a house in the UK, so it will be back to Lincolnshire where the mountains are 5 ft high and the houses are cheap....We do intend that the next house will be chosen and done up to be a more permanent home, our running about must stop sometime. I think the ghosts we have been running from will never go, and we have to recognise that our capabilities for doing houses up will eventually fade...The UK calls - firstly as Brexit has made it financially impossible to live here in Austria on a meagre pension and also because - have you eaten Austrian food? Consider a house done up for renting - beige throughout, just crying for some colour; Austrian food is just that, no colour, no flavour and the only texture is iron hard bread and dried out smoked sausages and meat. This would be OK as my wife is an excellent cook - but the raw ingredients are awful......We now feel it is time to slow down, find a house with enough garden for a few chickens - but I can not imagine that will really happen for long. What we have done is store a host of varied memories to look back on. 

Off-grid Cumbria farmhouse to renovate

Right, I promise to move away from the rural farmhouse thing for a while after this post. But I just had to show you this one. I think I'm in love.
It's in Cumbria and, on a personal level, I'm not Cumbria's biggest fan. Yes, I know about the walking and the views and the beaches and the tearooms, but honestly - does the sun ever shine on Cumbria?
Even these prettily-filtered photos have dark clouds rolling in.

Swindale Head is a five bedroom farmhouse with attached workshop and barn. We're talking remote, off-grid loveliness here.
Built in 1630, Swindale Head isn't connected to mains electricity and drainage is by septic tank.
It does however have a mains water supply, BT phone line, and electricity is currently provided by its own generator and battery bank. And there are stoves or fireplaces in all the main rooms.
Honestly, I'm utterly besotted.

In quiet Swindale Valley, about ten miles from Penrith, the house is the last property on single-track Swindale Lane, and has Swindale Beck running just beyond and past the enclosed garden area.
Swindale Head comes with 0.66 acre of land, plus outbuildings and wood store.

This is away-from-it-all stuff. Wainwright described described Swindale as a "shy and beautiful little valley" and noted the lack of traffic compared to areas rather more frequented by tourists.
Downstairs is the hall, living room, kitchen/family room, bathroom (I'd move that upstairs), and access to the workshop. Upstairs are five decent-sized bedrooms and a boxroom.

Outside, is a large barn housing the Lister generator and battery bank.

On the market through PFK but be quick - offers deadline is this Friday,  22 June. Offers around £285k. More here and here.

Four rural farmhouses with land

I think you could say this is Louise's post more than it's mine. Reader Louise has sent me a positive deluge of gorgeous wrecks over the last few weeks, and I've put the best ones into this post. So sit back, relax, dream with Louise.
We'll start at the top of the tree price-wise, with the lovely Waterloo House above and below. On the outskirts of the Shropshire town/village of Clun, it comes with around half-an-acre of land rolling down to to the River Clun.

There are three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, plus two attic rooms, and two reception rooms, kitchen, pantry and scullery downstairs.

Outside is garden area, a courtyard and a large, two-storey stone barn.

On the market through Strutt & Parker (they do the loveliest property photos...) with a guide price of £425k. Details here and here.
This stunning wreck of a farmhouse (below) at Clayton-Le-Woods, Lancashire, comes with just under an acre of land.

There are five bedrooms plus two large attic rooms, bathroom, a bundle of reception rooms, kitchen and cellar, and lots of period details.

What I love most about those pictures is the signs of someone living there - the weights in the bedroom, the dog bowls on the floor, the fishing rods against the wall. Somebody will miss wandering around this beautiful wreck.
It's Grade II listed, built around 1700, and has an interesting past. Hawksmoor farmhouse sits in pretty and secluded rural area, accessed by  private track.
On the market through Peter E Gilkes at £275k. More here and here.
This next one has a deadline for final offers of Thursday June 14th.
The lovely three-bedroom detached cottage is at Ratlinghope, in the South Shropshire hills.
Used as a holiday cottage by the same family for 40 years, it needs work but, as well as being surrounded by stunning open views, comes with 3.6 acres of its own land to run wild in.

On the market through Samuel Wood at offers around £200k by June 14th. More here and here.
Also on a deadline is the three-bedroom house, below, a couple of miles from historic Ludlow in Shropshire.

Beautiful views from its hillside position, and a good chunk of land (around half an acre) to play with.

Bathroom is downstairs and rooms are a bit higglegy-piggedly, but lots of potential here.
The last person to live here was an old chap who loved gardening. Do him proud.
On the market at offers over £235k, with a deadline for bids of July 5th, via Strutt & Parker. More here and here.
Louise incidentally is an Aussie living in Canada, who came across Wreck while looking for visual inspiration for her writing. She's now addicted to looking at English property: "Argh. So many prettys"! Yep, we're with you on that, Louise!