Wreck of the Week

My previous post is feeling rather flippant today. Not least because, rather than find an isolated cottage away from people generally, I'm worrying more about the need to stay away from people I love - my elderly mum with chronic illnesses; my brother with cancer. Suddenly, how we choose to live together over the coming days is more important than finding somewhere to live apart. Here are three properties with potential to inspire - or distract - us all from these darkening times. My first choice is the very pretty St Edmunds church, above and below, in the East Yorkshire coastal village of Fraisthorpe. There are no internal photos - which would normally put me off featuring a property - but the prettiness and the deadline (final offers by March 20th) mean I wanted to show you it. The property, one of the Church of England's current disposals , comes with permissions already in place to turn the Grade II listed church into a two-bedroom house. And the guide pr...

I'm currently living and working in York. That handsome medieval city that was home to the UK's first Coronovirus victim , flooded streets - and that plague of African locusts is probably just around the equatorial corner.  There's a pretty biblical feel to the news nowadays. All of which has led me to thinking about living a more isolated life, and I started looking for wrecks that were closer to nature and further from people. Here are three suggestions. Sent to me by reader Tim, Changue Farm bungalow is pretty much land rather than a wreck. Well, clearly a wreck, but not an interesting enough building to renovate. A two-bedroom Dumfries bungalow with holes in the walls. It comes with planning permission to replace it with a  three-bedroom detached house (or whatever you're able to renegotiate with planning). But, the big but, it also comes with five acres of land, stunning sea and land views - and your own bit of the foreshore. It's fou...