Property/DIY
How and where can I find a really remote cottage? Ireland, Scotland, Wales.... where else?
StarryStarryNight · 01/08/2007 19:31
I am looking to buy a really remote little 2 bedroom cottage as a holiday home.
I am thinking Wales, Ireland, Scotland, but dont know where to start?
Or maybe land and do a timber self build?
Has anybody done this?
Any suggestions for nice areas where I can cycle, angling (river and sea fishing), pick wild berries, etc...
I dont need electricity.
expatinscotland · 01/08/2007 20:40
Why not just hire one if it's going to be for a holiday? That way you can travel someplace different every year.
Seems more enivornmentally sound than buy a holiday home.
Those things have really ruined a lot of communities and caused huge amounts of resentment in the locations you seek.
StarryStarryNight · 01/08/2007 20:44
Right. I didnt know this was the attitude in the British countryside.
Here it is big business for farmers to sell off small pieces of land that otherwise would be useless to them, to cityfolk who want to make second home for coming on the weekend and holidays and spending money in shops locally. These holiday homes dont have water and plumbing and electricity and need no infrastructure at all.
Thanks for informing me.
expatinscotland · 01/08/2007 20:49
It certainly isn't 'big business' for farmers around here, most of whom are tenants being slowly driven off their lands by greedy landlords and supermarkets, who sell the land for exclusive housing estates.
And I have to say, having now travelled extensively in the countryside here, second home owners are right up there with Thatcher in popularity.
Sorry, but that's the truth.
Most will put on a show for the money, but second home owners don't really add to the local economy - they're not there often - and price everyone else out.
Desiderata · 01/08/2007 20:55
Are these self-builds, Starry?
I personally don't have a problem with that at all. You obviously (I've read your profile) have a need for solitude on occasion, and you have an affinity with nature.
Some of those natural self-builds are wonderful.
The problem many of us have (although it doesn't affect me where I live), is when fairly affluent people buy up local properties for hefty prices, thus making it impossible for local people to buy then.
They don't contribute much to the local economy because they tend to keep themselves to themselves (and load up their cars with luxuries they bought beforehand).
But a self-build, with planning permission, coupled by a genuine desire to enjoy the solitude of nature, well that get's me thumb's up.
StarryStarryNight · 01/08/2007 20:57
I guess here it is just a way of life, and you dont have to be rich to have a cottage like this, many city folk do as being part of nature is so important. Most spend every weekend in their cottages, fishing, picking blueberries, artic cloudberries, crowberries etc.
And the farming/countryside community of fishermen and farmers welcome these, and even help look after the cottages by looking in on them, shuffling snow of the roofs, etc. Money is spent in the countryside, both on fishing permits, groceries, etc...
StarryStarryNight · 01/08/2007 21:03
Desi, these can come as either a self build construction set, or they can build it for you. There are never too many cottages like this in one area, but they are dotted around the perifery of land which would be hard to farm, right next to rivers, near bog land, in the forest.
But you can also find "cottage neighbourhoods" on a hillside where the farmer has sold off a chunk of land sectioned out, so you find maybe 6 cottages dotted around a mountainside, sometimes too steep for animals such as sheep or cows, or where the land is so barren it is uneconomical to try and cultivate it. Also the sun may be "wrong" in terms of the crop available to cultivate in the region. You would often find boat houses nearby, as people would like to fish, and spend the summer filling their freezer with cod, coalfish, etc.
It is true, the longer i live in London, the more I long for such a place.
Now even my oldest wants to have a house here... and he asking why he was not born here, and why is his dad not from here also. sad.
moondog · 01/08/2007 21:49
Who is 'that bitch Ann Gloag'?
Starry,love your patronising assumption that local yokels are pityingly grateful to be afforded the dubious privilege of 'shuffling snow of the roofs'
And as for 'buying groceries'.. My arse!
The 4X4s arrive loaded up with goodies from M&S and Waitrose down sarf.
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