ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

My House Is 500 Years Old

Updated on December 3, 2010

Dartmoor

We live 8 miles from Dartmoor in a village overlooking the Moor.
We live 8 miles from Dartmoor in a village overlooking the Moor.
Location of the House. Click image for full size map
Location of the House. Click image for full size map

We Are In Devon, In The UK

We bought an old house ten years ago, in this countryside area of the UK. The idea was to have a holiday home, but a couple of years ago I gave up my job in London to move here permanently.

We are only 260 miles from London, but surprisingly, many people who live here haven't been to our capital city, or, they went there once in 1975 and didn't like it.

The map shows our location within the UK. Our local village has a history going back 1000 years and overlooks Dartmoor - an area of outstanding natural beauty.

Dartmoor is about 400 square miles of National Parkland and is about 8 miles from my home. It is famous for lots of things, some of which are :

Asbestos Roof

House with asbestos roof before re-thatching took place. Click image for larger view.
House with asbestos roof before re-thatching took place. Click image for larger view.

The Walls Are Made Of Mud

Our house has mud walls (known as cob) and originally, when built in around 1500 would have had a thatched roof made of local water reeds, grasses or even turf.

When we bought the house, there was no thatch left on the house, having been replaced by "Cornish thatch", (which is a bit of an in-joke). There is a rivalry between the counties of Devon and Cornwall, and in Devon a Cornish Thatch is a term for a cheap and nasty roof!

Some time back in the 1960s, the thatched roof was in such bad repair that the then owner presumably couldn't afford to re-thatch, so organised an asbestos roof. Asbestos was used back then for this purpose. The photo shows how the house looked when we bought it in 1998 with this type of roofing.

The first thing we did was to get permission to have the asbestos roof removed. The planners were quick to agree to this as they are goaled on encouraging the restoration of ancient houses. The asbestos had to be taken away by a specialist firm who deal with this risky substance. It's a large roof - there was tons of the stuff.

Our Dear Queen

She owns my house??!? No way!
She owns my house??!? No way!

Planning Permission and an Annoying Bloke Called Nils

I have had some interesting meetings with planning officers and conservation officers.

One of the first of these fine men was a chap called Nils, who moved me to tears. And not because he recited some heart-rending sonnet. It was because he said I had to keep and restore a decrepit 1970s conservatory that had been built to lean against the back of the house.

The current thinking (in council planning circles) being, that a 1970s alumininium frame deserves to be preserved even when found leaning against a 16th century wall. When I protested, Nils reminded me that technically I didn't own the house - that in reality it belonged to the Queen. I think that might have been when I started to cry. The Queen, as far as I knew, hadn't been helping us to pay the mortgage.

Installing the New Thatch

When the thatchers were in the midst of the re-thatching
When the thatchers were in the midst of the re-thatching
The new thatch - but there is still a lot of work to do on the house.
The new thatch - but there is still a lot of work to do on the house.

A New Thatch

Five years ago we spent £60,000 (about $120,000) on the new water reed roof. The price included the restructuring of the timbers underneath.

Back in the 1960s they had altered the roof to suit an asbestos covering so we had to rebuild it (without touching the ancient timbers) to receive a new thatch. The thatch we used was imported from Turkey which we were assured was the best you could have and might last the longest.

But What About The Rain?

Once the new thatch was on, I asked the Master Thatcher (a special guy who is an expert in thatching), what stopped the rain getting through. (I had just realised to my horror that the only thing between me and the sky was going to be 50 cm of grass).

He said he didn't really know but gave me a demonstration where he poured buckets of water onto a bale of reeds and sure enough, the water flowed over the top and off, as opposed to through.

If you go into our roof space you'll see there is nothing between the sky and your head other than a bunch of grass. It's not lined in any way. The local birds love it, the local insects nest in it, bats hang upside down on it, and the mice eat through it. Other than that, it's brilliant.

An oak window recently replaced. The beams above the window are original.
An oak window recently replaced. The beams above the window are original.

The Next Phase

There is no kithen here - I currently use two ring stove - the type you find in a camping store. I am living without a kitchen - just a room with a microwave and a camping stove. I suppose you might say that is a kitchen?

The next piece of work planned for the house was going to cost around £200,000, ($400,000), so we needed to keep cool, count to 10 and book into therapy.

The Main Garden Area

Click image for full picture
Click image for full picture

The Garden

Recent projects have been focussed on easier to achieve, external projects - mostly in the garden. I built a walled garden with raised beds and turned some of the fields (the house came with 13 acres of land) into a wildlife haven for water birds.

Now this sounds extravagant, but in fact it doesn't cost much to hire a man with an enormous digger to hack out a few 4 metre deep, holes in the ground.

Admittedly they are rather large holes in the ground and it did take him a few weeks, but it was something to do whilst we contemplated whether to give up and sell the house, or struggle on and make something of it.

So Then There Were Ponds . . .

Once the holes were dug, it was just a matter of waiting for them to fill up with rainwater. The ground around here is solid clay, all holes are naturally waterproof. We didn't have to line the ponds - that would have been entirely out of the question due to cost. It rained the winter after we dug them non-stop and before we knew it there were vast areas of blue where before had been uninteresting, damp fields.

The garden lies on a gentle slope and there are now 7 ponds of differing sizes (from 2 metres in diameter through to 50 metres in diameter) running through it. There's a pump that moves water from the lowest pond, underground up to the small one at the top of the garden. Then the water runs and falls over a rock cascade back down again.

We only switch the pump on in the summer if we have guests or are out in the garden for a party or similar.

Once the ponds were built the garden became a magnet for wild deer who would come and drink at dusk. There are often badgers, foxes, rabbits, hares, deer, otters, frogs, toads, pheasants, newts, herons, ducks, geese and all manner of other water birds in our garden now.

White Stag In The Distance

You can just see one of the local white stags at the bottom of our field.
You can just see one of the local white stags at the bottom of our field.

Visiting Fox

The Walled Garden

Gunnera

Geese

Goslings

Wildlife Pond

Office Building

Garden Lawn Area

Garden Ponds

English Summer

Clematis in flower
Clematis in flower

The Future

Well, the last phase of work on the house is due to start this summer. When it is completed I will probably want to move!

Actually, I'm planning is to open the house up to visitors at the weekend and hold short, but intensive weekend web building courses with fine dining and fine wine, in fine surroundings.

I'll keep you posted . . .

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)