Just in case you are interested in ‘the history’ my mother found the cottage in 1954 after my father died and we were more or less penniless; it had no electricity, telephone, sewage system and water had to be hand pumped from the well (next to the willow tree). The deciduous wood was being totally felled at the time and the bulldozers pulling out tree trunks made the drive impassable so provisions were wheel-barrowed down the drive ! The wooden addition to the bungalow did not exist then. This was in about 1954 and the man who sold us the cottage was going bankrupt and he lived in that lovely old Reydon Hall on the way into Southwold. We were the first residents after the old gamekeepers.

We never got the shooting rights so in season the hunters can shoot over our land….to the consternation of any guests! (not often actually).

My mother lived there for the remaining 40+ years of her life until she was no longer able to drive and so she became ‘marooned’ and had to live in a mobile home in our garden until she died.

Following that I was sad that the house had to be sold eg. the silver birch tree opposite the back door I had transplanted as a sapling, and my mother planted the willow and the fir near the house which keeps growing and growing ….so we bought out my brother and two sisters and spent all our spare time over one year in a major re-build as nature had moved into the cottage in a big way…including grey squirrels into the roof (no, they are not nice animals and they also eat birds eggs and baby birds !). We had help from one ‘do-all’ builder chap and a plasterer who also damp-proofed the brickwork. The wooden part is actually on old cart wheels and was towed from north-Norfolk and over the years my mother had had it moved from in the wood to join it onto the cottage. Letting the cottage is not a major investment scheme by any means but it does enable us to keep it and we did pay off the bank loan !

Major work in recent years has been the special septic treatment tank, a new water pipe all the way down the drive, a special external oil boiler, land-draining the large grass area and finally double glazing with new windows. We have the telephone cable buried all the way down the drive except fpr the last two polesfor safety reasons but thank goodness we are not having to pay for that. The WiFi usually works well.

We hope we can avoid the worst of the Ash die-back but take care when walking in the woods

Nick