Strange house - ransacked and graves!

[Woollypullover]

Currently looking at houses in this area and have come across this place. Why do you think it's so messy? Is this just delapidation or has it been maybe burgled? I don't think I can live with graves in the garden. Seems very spooky but was probably a very nice house at some point. Very old.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/150025598#/?channel=RES_BUY

Looks haunted af. I wouldn't

Not sure they are visible - just mentioned in the estate agent blurb from what I can see.

I think the estimates of 500k to restore are very optimistic! My great grandparents owned a very similar house (when it could be bought for a song in the early 1900s). The current owners who are friends have had to pay a fortune just for some of the external beams to be repaired or replaced due to rot. Again, given its listing status they have had to have a specialist who does museum quality work...absolute fortune!

It's obviously beautiful and worthy of love and repair. I really think that houses like this need taking on by English Heritage or the National Trust though. Unless you can find someone who is devoted to preserving its history and makes it a labour of love and also has a bottomless pit of money, it's usually far beyond the means of all but a very narrow market.

I wonder if it was a pub at some point in the past? It rather has that look. Long and narrow, but with a weird extension on the back. And now the pub has moved to the property opposite.
I suspect it's had squatters in at some point, but also just an elderly person who couldn't keep up with it.

There's a similar property near my mums house. Out in the countryside. It was a pub that then went out of business and was vacated. It stood empty for about 10 years and each time I drove past it I'd notice new decay.
It's now been taken over, done back up, and is back operating as a pub/restaurant, and is looking lovely.

I wonder if it's been the home of an elderly person, who became a bit of a horder and was unable to do maintenance.

I love old houses but it's a no from me !

Could have been a pub but the footprint, and the roof photo, suggests that of a hall house, for a shop or 'showroom' style business (usually symmetrical, 2 wings at each end, and originally a kind of service corridor between a larger and a smaller side, generally separating the storage and kitchen area). That is probably what was between what's described as the snug hall and dining room - the lower kitchen won't have moved far if it was a hall house. The part marked Workshop is maybe the later addition or could be separate- animal shelter? - and then assimilated into the whole. Re. the roof - can compare the inside presence of the brick chimney to its size compared to other/s on the outside (heats the smartest parts). The blueprint 'classic hall houses' were usually a bit earlier than the claim for date of this building, though.

It’s not the graves you mention that are scary, it’s the grade 2 listing that’s the terrifying bit 😂. I think houses should always have as many original features preserved as possible, hate seeing old fireplaces and stained glass in skips, but having to comply with the rules and regulations is a massive hassle and as has been mentioned, extremely expensive.

We viewed an old Georgian house a few years back, I would have loved to have bought it, but we were halfway up the stairs when the agent mentioned that the actual staircase was listed, I all of a sudden was scared to even be touching it, there were many other parts of the building listed also, windows, doors. I would have felt like I was in a part ownership scheme with English heritage, I don’t think I could ever quite relax in my own home.

Weavers' business is mentioned, which makes since.
I reckon the family or the younger husband tried to look after it and gave up, or someone had dementia and no one had power of attorney...

If a building is listed, at any grade, it is all listed, the exterior, the interior, the nice old features but also the nasty 50s extension on the back, the crappy replacement windows, any building, or sometimes walls or railings in the curtilage (area around). you need to apply for listed building consent for any alterations. It is not just the parts mentioned in the list description.

This is a picture from the Historic England website - says it was taken in 2002... so looks like its demise has been in the last 20 years or so.

The parish council minutes from
2022 mention an ownership/inheritance dispute (busy day here). Looks like it's been a longrunning problem.

He lived there in 30s
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blair_Hughes-Stanton

They seemingly divorced and he remarried two more times. Presumably the house was left to Ida.
She died in late 1990s. I suspect that is how long the house stood empty. They were both artists.
According from notes from Parish meetings from 2 years ago, there was a squabble over who owns the house (I counted 6 kids)..

Ida sounds ace! She binned the first husband and said “he was impotent. Well not impotent but he couldn’t hold his horses.”😂

A house like that would be completely unmortgageable, but it has amazing potential. I imagine it's in that state because the previous owners gave up on renovations partway through.

anything listed can be a nightmare; my shop is listed and even something as simple as painting it or putting up a shop sign takes an age plus going through all sorts of hoo ha

It looks awful on Street View - the photographer has done a sterling job with the photos of the exterior for fhe listing!

The big chimney on the right hand side of the property looks structurally unsound on street view.

Yep. It’s not financially viable at 500k, and even if it was, that by pass is awfully close.

If I had deep, deep (deep) pockets I would, road nearby, layout and all. Beautiful and with such a fascinating history. I'd be interested in who did the frescoes, Blair was an artist but Ida was involved with the Bloomsbury group. Another kerching! to have them properly restored of course.

It’s like an antique hunters dream. Tables, artwork, books, rugs, lace, furniture, records, it’s all there. All of somebody’s life just left there. It does look like the roof has been repointed and it’s reasonably watertight. Some of the vertical timbers look poor, and all the windows look destroyed. Electricity looks to be a series of cables tacked to door fames and ceiling joists. The road/graves wouldn't put me off. The grade II listing status would worry me the most in terms of making any remediation work harder.

This is beautiful. I've tried googling but nothing is coming up. What is it from or who is it by? Is it by Ida herself?

Yes from her obituary in the independent I think.

@RumNotRun

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-ida-affleck-graves-1128050.html

Thank you. She sounds like she was a fascinating lady.

Do you suppose that the other grave is that of her son, Anthony? Her obit says he died at the age of 27 in an avalanche, but I can't find out anything more. I would assume he probably died in the 1950s

Not sure when the street view was taken but the downstairs windows have since been boarded up in the listing pics.