Boats for living on (the sequel)

Many years ago, 12 to be exact, I wrote a post about buying and doing up boats to live on. I was reminded of that on my lunchtime walk, standing for a while with a group of old chaps to watch the lifeboat being hauled onto the beach. Out of water, lifeboats move like seals.

I went back to the links I'd used in that post from 2013 and, while some of the sites have gone, most are still around - which was nice to see. There are lots of boats out there, lots and lots, so I limited myself to a top price of £40k (pocket-money for you £2million-ers... ; ) and ignored anything already done up.

I'm going to start here, with this 1960s, partly-renovated former trawler. Currently berthed in a marina in Plymouth, the owners have done a fair bit of work to prep it but there's a lot more to do. 

It's basically two 'rooms' at present - the cockpit, and the saloon/galley/anything else space shown below. The issue will be whether you could repurpose the large hull to create a bedroom and bathroom, if your goal is to spend more than occasional weekends in the marina.

But at offers on just £10k, it's well worth exploring. On the market through Boatshed (Plymouth), more information and pictures through the agent, and on Apollo Duck here. 

Also in the 25/26ft bracket is this chunky and cute narrowboat. Much, much less work to do, but also three times the price and you'd need to get it to where you want it.

Saloon/galley, plus separate toilet, shower, and a bedroom with a fitted double bed base. Details are pretty limited and don't include why it isn't in the water - could just be a storage issue at the yard? Also, I think all boats should have a name.

On the market at £37,750 through Nationwide Narrowboat Sales, more here.

And, if you really know your boats, this beautiful part-renovation of a classic 1948 Morgan Giles needs someone to finish the job and get it back to sea and under sail (top pic and below).

Designed by F.C. Morgan Giles, it was bought as wreck in 2010, the hull has been rebuilt, the bulkhead, decks and roofing replaced and the interior started. There's an engine and mast waiting to be fitted and electrics to do. Easy-peasy for the right buyer ; )

On the market through Wooden Ships at just £6500. Details and more pictures here.

Just to wrap up, couple of other sites I'd recommend if the idea of moving from land to water appeals.

Have a look at the New and Used Boat Company's secondhand section - they're not just another aggregator so useful on the advice front too. Apollo Duck is an aggregator but one that's been around for decades and carry a good mix of private and trade sales. A good option for registering interest in particular locations or types of boats (basically Rightmove for boats). And, if narrow boats are your thing (or could be), have a look at the Historic Narrowboat Club for information and guidance on what to look for.

Sea is calm this evening, hopefully the lifeboat can stay at home.

Two houses with snow potential

I've woken up to snow today. Well, snow-ish - mostly pavements like glass covered by a white dusting that fools you with its prettiness. 

Anyway, now me and the hound are back from our slip-sliding walk and are hunkered down with treats and the fire, I thought I'd find a couple of wrecks for you today in locations that do proper snow.

And I'm going to start here, top of the tree price-wise to properties I'd usually choose, and more tired than a wreck, but absolutely beautiful.

Ingleside House is in the borders town of Hawick. It's a mixture of Arts and Crafts princess palace with 1950s housewife decor. The challenge for whoever takes it on will - hopefully - be how much of both you decide to keep.

On the ground floor are three reception rooms, kitchen with walk-in pantry, large utility room, boot room and wine store. There's a gorgeous entrance hall and a downstairs loo.

It's that plaque left on the stairs ('Queen of the garden') that gets me. And yes, her gardens are still beautiful.

On the first floor are five bedrooms and two bathrooms, with a further bedroom on the second floor and an enormous games/playroom - possibly big enough for one of Sir Rod's trains sets. 

The house has lovely wrap-around gardens, garage, brick outbuildings, a summer house and large greenhouse. It sits in a quiet area of Hawick - the largest of the border towns, with everything a pretty and popular tourist town has to offer.

On the market at offers over £460k through Bannerman Burke. More details, pictures and video on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.

My second pick (top picture and below) is this part-finished renovation project sitting in the grounds of a Scottish estate.

Keeper's Cottage on the Cambusmore Estate, Sutherland, has planning permission, architect drawings and a fair bit of work already done to update it. To be honest, I'm puzzled why you'd get this far and then drop it onto the market at under £160k?

Planning was applied for in 2023 and approved February last year to remove that wooden extension and replace it with a fancy brick and render and big windows build. 

It doesn't look like that work has started and don't know what the status/issues are with the current plastered extension or whether you'd be able to just work with what's there. You'll need to ask questions because there'll be a deadline on starting the approved works.

The current owner isn't Cambusmore Estate's owners and may live 600 miles away, so perhaps plans for renovating a holiday home/let just proved too difficult at that distance? Or perhaps the agent's instruction that "no further land is available" indicates Cambusmore's owners' control over future development? 

Anyway, a big enough garden space for most of us and the location is absolutely breathtaking. 

Downstairs are two reception rooms, kitchen, separate utility room and loo, plus that large lounge extension and a downstairs shower room and store. Upstairs are three bedrooms and a bathroom.

It currently shares a septic tank with the Big House; you'd need to install your own. Access looks ok the estate is on the A9 and given it's a visitor destination with its own holiday lets, access around the estate should also be good, if needing negotiation for your trades and trucks. 

On the market at offers over £155k through Paul Coutts agency. Details, more pictures and videos on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.

The snow has gone while I've worked on this, replaced by a biting wind the east coast excels at. My 'to-do' garden is looking even wetter and scruffier without its icing-sugar coating. The gnome is the gnome.

Three coastal properties (P.S. I'm back)

So, last time we got together, a few days over three years ago, things were looking pretty ok. Covid done, Trump v1 gone, and Truss replaced. But I was knackered.

Like lots of you, I started to shed the things that, as they say, were no longer giving me joy and one of those was Wreck of the Week. I put it on hold in case I got my property mojo back, but also because I knew how important it was to many of my readers as an archive of how we'd love to live.

Anyway, me and my mojo have been reunited and I'm making time for Wreck again. 

So, let's get the ball rolling with three interesting coastal properties that sum up the Wreck ethos - detached, peaceful, space, and some "challenges".

This first one is sort-of down the road and around several windy bends from me, which means I can tell you that the agent photos are rubbish - it's got a lot more kerb appeal than the drone shots suggest.

It's at Waxholme, on the gorgeous East Holderness coast, with a decent amount of farmland between the house and our eroding cliffs.

Formerly two properties, the mill house and cottage, now operating as one home, plus a jumble of outbuildings, a large plot of land and garden (0.4 acres) and the remains of Black Mill - which reportedly inspired Tolkien. 

There are four bedrooms across the conjoined houses, upstairs bathroom and downstairs loo, three reception rooms, kitchen, utility room and large attached garage. 

The complexity is that, while the property has been lived in as one home, the house and cottage are still listed separately on the land registry and no planning permission covering the work to join them.

Which probably explains why it's listed for auction. 

Auction runs online from noon on December 1st to 1pm on December 3rd, with a guide price of £200k. Details and more pictures on Rightmove here and at agents Auction House here.

Here, by the way, is the video I shot today of my own bit of coast.

And while we're on the subject of cliffs, Hollis Morgan has this 1.4 acre chunk of cliff and beach in Portishead, near Bristol, up for auction next week.

I don't understand how it's still possible, in 2025, to be able to buy and sell freehold a strip of beach, nor quite what you'd do with it (pitch a tent, watch the dog walkers pass by, wait for the sea, study the exceptional geology?), but with a guide price of £10-30k, owning this view of the Bristol Channel may be enough.

Up for auction on November 19th. Details and more pictures here.

Hang on, Portishead?? Cue a favourite song.

And finally, HERE is a proper coastal wreck.

Two bedroom cottage, with two acres of land, great views, and less than 2km from the stunning White Strand Beach on Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way. And on the market for just 145k euro (about £128k).

So far, so amazing. Here come the challenges...

There are two rooms downstairs and two upstairs, all with open fires. A shower, sink and loo has been added to one of the downstairs rooms. As the estate agent puts it: "Its traditional layout offers a warm, rustic feel". Indeed.

It is however in a quite spectacular coastal location and close enough to a village (Castlecove, county Kerry) and positioned on the N70, to make access to materials and trades easier.

On the market through agents Eleanor Connor-Scarteen at 145k euro. Details and more pictures here.

How to find and buy your wreck

This is by way of a holding post. A sign that I've pretty much drifted away from Wreck (as regular readers will have noted) but haven't quite let go of the idea of old-lady-gone houses, neglected beauties, and the dreamscape of space and peace Wreck represents.

So, this is a page to bookmark. Here's the amalgamation of everything I've learned from 12 years of finding amazing, interesting or weirdly wonderful properties to help you in your own search.

1. You're not looking for a "forever home"

It's a nice marketing concept but the reality is that what you need from a home will change over time and the likelihood of finding one property that will work for every change you'll live through is pretty remote. Today you may desperate for a remote, off-grid escape from city living, tomorrow you might mostly want a hip replacement.

Exhibit A: This handsome farmhouse and barns (separated by a road) on the Orkney coastline at Burwick, sent to me by reader Elizabeth. Offers over £125k, details and lots of pictures here. 

2. Don't buy to your funds limit

Don't spend every penny and max the cards on a do-up, unless the people who will live in it with you are equally committed to living in a caravan/hut and spending every weekend doing the doing-up.

And definitely don't spend your savings and max the cards on a second home or home-to-let do-up. Friend, this is the wrong country at the wrong time right now for that sort of financial risk. 

I've featured many unfinished do-ups over the years and always find myself wondering what that represents; a renovation dream ended but also maybe debt, a broken relationship, homelessness perhaps? The emotional kick that comes from finding you're not quite up to your ambition? 

Basically, you've got the purchase price, plus 20 percent for buying costs, plus the estimated costs of immediate works (the bits that get you to being able to move in), plus 20 percent contingency, plus the longer term works you'll do to make the house comfortable or profitable, plus 20 percent contingency, and another chunk of cash you'll need to hide somewhere to cover the boiler breaking down on Boxing Day or the car conking out on that still muddy access road, or the dog getting sick.

Exhibit B: Three-bedroom farmhouse, barns and almost six acres in the Yorkshire Dales. Sent to me by reader Paula: "I thought this one might be it, within commutable distance.... and also within our budget. But on closer inspection it would take at least double that budget to get it habitable!" On the market with Richard Turner & Son,  more pictures and details here.

3. Look in "wrong" places on the upturn

This is a difficult one. Basically, you need to develop your ability to recognise when an unpopular location may be on the turn towards popular. Start with one big thing - coast, views, space - the  element that would add several hundred thousands to the price if it was commutable from London, and focus on anonymous little towns and villages that offer that big thing.

I'll give you an example. Hubby and I are currently making our third attempt at buying a second home. The other two were on popular holiday locations and had everything we were looking for in terms of size, privacy, weekend driving distance. We got cold feet and pulled out, first time over deed issues, second after the big Ts crashed the economy.

This third house has the same space, privacy and (just about) driving distance, but is also a two-minute walk from the sea - something we couldn't afford in the other two locations. Yet it's £70k cheaper. 

The difference? There are more vape shops than bric-a-brac shops on the high street, and the journey there is awkward, sometimes ugly.

But what this seaside town does have are the three things I look for in a "wrong" place on the turn upwards - anonymity, art, community.  

Anonymity. If no-one you know has heard of that place, that's a good thing. Reputation is a cost, up or down.

Public art investment can change the feel as well as the look of a town. New art on a spruced-up promenade is a signal of local pride and ambition. And if artists move into an area, that always changes that place for the better. Gentrification follows a generation behind them.

I mentioned the vape shops but that was a cheap jibe. What this particular place also has are several community hubs, advice centres, and local charities. A down-at-heel resort that's rich in community - people who are actively trying to help each other get by, is worth a dozen Cornish ghost villages.

And there's a fourth thing I suggest you look for - skips! Active home renovation and improvement means home owners who can afford to invest and who believe in the area enough to want to invest.

Exhibit C: This historic semi in little-known Skelton has wraparound gardens and a wonderful 70s G-Plan vibe. Have a look at the inside pics here. On the market through Harvey Brooks at £240k.

4. If you can't afford to buy space, aim for a view that can't be built on

River, sea, deed-protected playing fields, Duchy land (rarely developed), boggy land, wobbly land or hilly land that's expensive to build on (developers own more than enough easy land to build on).

I prefer to feature detached wrecks with plots of land on Wreck - the dreamier side of property. But that's not something I've ever been able to afford myself - hubby and I work in cities; our children live in cities. So all our homes have been terraces or end-terraces. But with views that feel outside the city. 

5. Take your time, do your research.

Each Wreck post takes me best part of a day to produce (six hours so far on this one). That's because when what you're looking for is a type of property, a property that offers a particular lifestyle rather than one in a specific location or at a set price, you do a LOT of scrolling.

I've written before about how I search and find my Wrecks, and given tips on that process for you here and here, while this page is a (hopefully still) useful round-up of places to find more unusual properties.

But, going back to point 1, allow time for your initial ideas to change. Every time I post, there is at least one property I really, really want to live in. I'll share it with our children; buy a lottery ticket; keep looking at it on my phone until that STC notice is added. 

But, months or years later, I'll spot it again on Wreck and I rarely have that same response. Obviously homes are like band names, they may not seem to suit at first but they grow on you. But my point is that lust isn't love. Take your time to find comfortable. 

Exhibit D: And, if your comfortable is definitely a Scottish wreck, with breathtaking views across the Trossachs, stone steadings and half an acre - go for it! On the market at offers over £250k via Galbraith. More here.