Wreck of the Week

There's something very grand about this pretty detached house; something decidedly reaching above its station. Maybe it's the period details. The large fireplaces, the windows with their bold architrave and shutters, the extra-wide grey stone frontage. It's not the largest of houses, just three bedrooms, and the rooms aren't exactly ballroom-material, but those features act like they expected to find themselves in a big country manor house, not a Cumbrian cottage. However cute. South View Cottage sits on a hill overlooking the lovely and lively market town of Kendal . That view, and its location in Kendal's conservation area, have not unexpectedly bumped up the price. As well as those three bedrooms (one of which is accessed through the middle bedroom), South View has three reception rooms and a bathroom downstairs, and a lower ground floor kitchen. It's not the best of layouts and some remodelling (as our cousins across the pond wo...

Two wee wrecks for you this week. Each a traditional cottage trapped in its past and in need of a future. First up, this dinky one-bed crog cottage in Snowdonia. Sent to me by regular reader/wreck-spotter Jacky, it's in the large-ish village of Waunfawr, about five miles miles from both Caernarfon and the Snowdonia National Park. The village even has its own microbrewery . The cottage is basically three rooms and  a store downstairs, with two traditional crog lofts above. The estate agent's floor plan looks rather optimistic compared to the reality. Having said that, I love that daffodil yellow front room enough to ignore the bath in the kitchen... Outside the cottage is surrounded by a decent size garden and the building as a whole has plenty of scope to re-shape and expand, as well as renovate. And, at under £100k, there's a lot of potential here to create a very pretty, Under the Thatch -type Welsh country home. On the market through H...

A tad on the pricey side for 'Wreck' but, given the upmarket area and the all-round adorable-ness of this farmhouse, we can live with that. Brinkburn Farmhouse is a large four-bedroom, three-storey end-terrace in the North Yorkshire village of Hovingham, around 18 miles from York. Lots of space - three reception rooms, kitchen, diary (?), store and two halls downstairs; four bedrooms plus bathroom on the first floor, and two large attics on the second. There is a crazy edge to it - the floor plan for example shows one bedroom "sealed off", although the agent's details note that room has now been unsealed. (I'm sorry, but the only vaguely good reason I can think of for sealing up a bedroom is to cut heating costs. Otherwise, I'm thinking this .) And access to the street the property sits on involves crossing a stream, albeit across some pretty solid looking bridges. Brinkburn Farmhouse is Grade II listed and there are lovely o...