Isles of Scilly and Dartmoor - two rare do-ups

I'm going to start with an apology, because my wreck picks this week are pricier than I would normally show you. But as they say on the telly: location, location, location (and in the song: money money, money).
This first. A detached, three bed do-up just about on the beach. The particular beach is at Hugh Town, on St Mary's, the sort of capital of the Isles of Scilly.
Properties to renovate on Scilly are about as rare as the proverbial from rocking horses, not least because most of the land and a third of the housing is owned by the Royals. Put it this way, in my 11 years of Wreck, this is the first one on the Scillys that I've written about.
Which is by way of explanation for why this particular wreck is up for a Scilly price (ouch!).

Ice House has a  bathroom, large kitchen, living room and dining room downstairs and a very large bathroom and three bedrooms upstairs. 

I presume the downstairs bathroom was added to make the house more accessible as its owner/s aged, and the whole property has the sadness of happy retirement overtaken by infirmity.
This was once a much-used workshop. The house is full of wood and projects.

Like many coastal properties it's also showing the effects of bad renovation ideas from the 70s and 80s - concrete render rather than breathable materials outside, varnished cork tiles on inside walls - both trapping damp rather than holding in warmth. There's a fair bit of stripping back and remodelling to do.
But the house has kept its beautiful stone bones to the front and rooms are all a good, workable size. And if you're looking for inspiration, this beautifully renovated terraced version a few doors away is on the market at £1.2m.

Ice House is a home that should have a family in it. Children running down the path to the beach after school. Parents working on the island, contributing to its economy. But with a guide price just under £650K plus renovation costs, that's not going to happen.

Which is not the fault of the estate agents, who simply reflect a market where scarcity sets prices, but it can be changed by bigger, bolder public decision making.
Doubling the council tax paid for second homes may push a handful of private holiday lets onto the market but it doesn't impact proper property businesses. If we really want more family home owners rather than renters, its the 50 landowners owning 12% of the UK that need to give up assets. Starting, on Scilly, with the Duchy of Cornwall.
Politics aside, this is a gorgeous house in a gorgeous bit of the UK. On the market through Stacey Mann Associates. Details, pictures and video on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.

My next pick to show you this week is also a chain-free, long-time family-owned property in a beautiful if pricey location.
The five bedroom detached house is in the Dartmoor National Park which, like the Isles of Scilly, also has the Duchy of Cornwall as its largest landowner.

Brook Lodge sits on its own acre of land and paddock, in the middle of moorland and fields and about a mile from the Devon village of Horrabridge, ten from Plymouth. 
It's an odd shape but one that would easily lend itself to a two family or shared living set-up (also, see my suggestions from a couple of weeks ago), but it's the land (1.04 acre) and location that appeals most.
The single storey bit at the front currently has a bedroom, large living room, study and attached garage - plenty of scope for remodelling into a one-bedroom bungalow with its own kitchen and bathroom.

The larger section has a kitchen, utility, bathroom, living room and bedroom downstairs, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs.
As with the Scilly house, it looks like the downstairs has been altered to deliver more accessible, ground floor living but could be reconfigured into a more conventional three bedroom house.
Plus there's masses of space outside for extending or rebuilding. And honestly, those views deserved to be looked at through nicer windows.

On the market with a guide price of £575k through Stags. Details and more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
And for inspiration, Stags has this beautiful 6-bedroom Georgian semi for sale in Dartmoor, which has absolutely nailed country house decor.

Grand houses left to rot - or not

This is bit of a catch-up post. A mish-mash of properties and updates sent to me in emails from readers that I thought I'd pull together in one post.
Starting with this definite wreck.
Boleskine (or Boleskin) House, overlooking Loch Ness, may have already crossed your social media path as it has a bit of a reputation.
Owned by infamous occultist Aleister Crawley between 1899 and 1933, it was bought by Led Zep's Jimmy Page in 1970, before being sold to the MacGillvrays in 1992, and on again to the current owners in 2009.

Jimmy Page pictured outside Boleskine in 1973. Photo credit Douglas Corrance

In 2015, whilst some of that family were out, the house was gutted in a devastating - and mysterious - fire and, by 2018, had been added to Scotland's Buildings At Risk Register.

Now the shell of B-Listed Boleskine is back on the market, along with over 22 acres of land, looking for an owner ready to undertake it's next and toughest renovation.
Reader Rebecca, from Seattle in the US, tipped me off about Boleskine House, adding:

I love getting your emails and reading about what you find. My husband and I frequently use the acronym "CYLH" to ask each other: "Could you live here?" Your blog is good fodder for these conversations.

So, could you live here?
On the market at offers over £200k through Galbraith. Details here.
Any of you remember Vectis Hall, on the Isle of Wight? I'd written about the former free school back in 2017, when a battle by locals to prevent it's owners leaving it to fall down resulted in the gorgeous space finally being put up for sale (have a look at the Hall's story and stunning pix on my original post).

Anyway, having been on the market with a guide price of £150k in July 2017, it's now back on the market with a new agent and a new asking price of "unconditional only" offers over £180k. 

Reader Lyn, who tipped me off about Vectis Hall back in 2017, emailed me this week to say the 'For Sale' had reappeared. And, given that the 2017 pictures are still being used on the new sales details, it seems poor old Vectis has continued to be left to rot by whichever owner is now hoping for a boomerang profit.... grrr.

Details here.

And finally while we're on the subject of falling-down beauties, Emma emailed me to say that Manna House, in Lincolnshire, had lost some floors since I posted about it back in 2013.(I did an update in 2018)

This fabulous post from April 2018, on the always informative 28DaysLater urb-ex site, shows the extent of some of the falling-down-ness.

The guide price has at least dropped since last year - from £250k to £225k, but otherwise it's yet another grand house being left to rot down to land-sale only. As I said earlier.... grrr.

Vectis Hall, Isle of Wight

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 development bodies, often until they reach the stage where they argue demolition is the only option.
The example that always gets me is the Lord Line building in my home city. I've spent thirty years driving past that art deco symbol of Hull's fishing and merchant navy past, dreaming of being able to buy it and bring it back to life.

Anyway, back to Vectis Hall. The mostly single-storey building was first listed in 1972.

There are five rooms, including the double-height Main Hall, and a "bedroom" on the first floor. I particularly love the graffiti on the far wall in this photo:

The Ryde estate agent was clearly taken with his or her visit to the building. I don't think I've ever read a description like this:

When you open the first set of doors you are met by by two further doors that tower way above your heard [sic] and simply ooze originality & character. These doors open to a mystical world of history and stories dating back through the centuries.

My guess is this is a building that estate agent also loves and has probably spent a lot of years hoping to play their own part in resurrecting Vectis Hall by finding a sympathetic buyer. I really hope they manage to find a renovator rather than a demolisher.
On the market through Pittis with a guide price of £150k. You'll need to be quick - best and final offers by Tuesday July 18th. Details here.