Our new project House (and rock cave houses)

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Mars said:

I'm not far from Droitwich, so virtually your neighbour, OP. That is a cracking find (the whole property). I'm looking for something similarly-interesting at the moment and failing so far.

We are in Bewdley at the moment, but yep, not too far at all!

Will keep my ear out in case anything comes up via the people I talking to in regards this project. Local trades and that.

The posting a note through the letterbox idea worked well for us but in fairness we did know of the house and it’s potential etc.

We actually found out this week that (long story ahead) the sandstones that surrounded the pond that my OH used to play in with the ducks at her parents property form part of the garden in the project house….

We think maybe as part of this outcrop that the fir tree sits on…



Essentially the OH’s father (now passed) decommissioned their garden duck pond, possibly as the OH spent all her time sat in it as a child with her friends, covered in duck poo.

Benjy (previous owner) was in the pub having a pint with OH’s late father and asked him what he was doing with all the old sandstones that ringed the pond. OH’s father said he was getting rid of them, Benjy asked if he could have them for the garden and Tom (OH’s late father) dropped them up the lane to him…..

Funny how life goes round isn’t it…. One of the big drivers for securing this house was proximity to the MIL who now lives alone and will be a five minute walk down the lane. Childhood memories and links to departed family just makes it all the more worthwhile for us both….

Cheers all

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Popped over this avo….

Turns out the saucepan set is LC, no sign of the small one though, yet


And took a mooch up to the top cave, retrieved the box and unpacked the Venetian mask thingys…



Cheers all

Edited by CTO on Sunday 3rd October 11:26

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Thanks for all the positive feedback all, and advice. Very much appreciated.

Does anyone know anything about China? I’ve found a whole load of stuff (large serving platters and dishes) in the cave all marked with this….



The pattern to the fronts is like;


Cheers all

Edited by CTO on Sunday 3rd October 16:51

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Thanks all,

Quiet day today. Had a mooch through the cave to see what “treasures” I can find. Brought some back to clean up.

Happy to post if anyone is interested in some oldish pottery… happy not to bother if no one is arsed

Cheers all

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Not a prob

So, unearthed and retrieved so far are

and

marked as


Then there was a fair bit of this, but not a full set


Including this, which I think is lovely!



Nearly a full set of these; missing a cup which may or not turn up…


Marked as



Some of these;


Marked as


And some funky pieces that I really like, such as


Also rescued these Le Creuset casserole dishes from under the sink in the kitchen


And found these (I think) quite funky bone china tea cups…



Hoping to have the caves fully emptied this week, will update accordingly and get the first actual pics of their internals and cooking facilities…

Cheers all

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Evening all,

A bit of an update, not much of major interest but I decided to start trying to clear the back garden….

View from back of house towards top of garden….


Decided to make a path to the top with a brushcutter…


More progress….


View to the back of the house..



As close to the top as I got..


It was at this point that I had the bright idea of calling “hire it” and getting a flail mower delivered again. My plan was that having cut a path to the top I could now get the mower up there turn it round and let it’s weight do the hard work back down the hill..

“Hire it” brilliant as usual and mower delivered within the hour… and that’s where it all went wrong.
Flail mower went up the hill fine, turned it round and it disappeared down the hill into the depths of the brambles as planned, but wouldn’t come out. Brambles wrapped round it and prevented it reversing out, even with diff lock on and me stood on top to add weight.

I did this three times, and admitted defeat. Amended the plan to include taking the thickness/height out of the brambles with the brushcutter and using the flail mower as a normal mower in lines up and down the hill, mulching as it went.

This proved to be a highly effective plan and more progress was made…

and,


Found an apple tree..

And finally started to see some of the garden as it is meant to be…



And view back down the garden towards the house


Plan for tomorrow is more of the same….
Widen the area cleared by about three metres to the left (as you look up the hill), and clear the bottom fully, unearth the sandstone wall that borders the patio and clear the area fully around the bottom rock houses…

Plan for now is await my KFC from Uber eats, and sleep.

Cheers all

Edited by CTO on Wednesday 6th October 19:57

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K50 DEL said:

Awesome property and thread OP, your posting style and pics are going to have a lot of people following this I reckon.

You've touched on some of the history of the property previously but do you have any idea how long it's been since the house actually had a "garden" rather than a wild mass of brambles? It's clear someone once lavished some love there.

Hi Del,

This is an aerial shot of the house and garden back when it was cared for….


The slope I was working on today is the lawn (remnants of) at the back of the house…

The photo was taken prior to the previous owners tenure which was 2003 onwards… The cars on the road age it a bit. I think one of them is an old VW Polo Breadvan and the other an old school Renault Twingo? Awaits flaming

My understanding is that the previous owners kept on top of it for a while and it eventually became too much for them. The chap was older than God’s dog tbf but they were both also tighter than two sheets of paper. There is no way they would fork out for someone to do some light maintenance, and now it looks like a jungle…

Cheers all,

Edited by CTO on Wednesday 6th October 20:49

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Thanks for the heads up, Mepht.

Sage advice re the conservation officer. I have a pretty good relationship with ours as I approached them for the OK when having the front of our current property repainted. He was a really reasonable guy but I did keep the emails for posterity should the next one be not quite so reasonable…..

I am hoping that now most of the cutting back is done my days of flail mowers and walk behinds are over but I’ll defo head your way should purchasing one be on the ever increasing garden equipment list!

Progress today, yet more clearance of the back garden. I didn’t take many pics as overslept and it was midday by the time I had got going!

Will maybe try and few before and after pics for comparisons..
Back garden before;


Token pic of me, looking at garden, garden staring back into my soul;


Garden as of today, terraces starting to become apparent;



Not clear enough though as wanted a line of sight to the top, so added this;

And this happened;


Still a bit more to do, but getting there….
Clearer to the side a bit more;

And clearer around the bottom cave a bit more. From this;

To this;


Made a bit more fuel for the fire;


That’s about it for today. Met the lovely lady from the power company who reviewed options for us to move the pole out of the garden, potentially underground from the farmers field next door. Met Dave who looks after peoples poles and talked me through the dangers of ivy on poles (and helped me start my chainsaw which was being a tw@t)

Tomorrow, the day of reckoning has arrived for the yellow stripy gits in the garden. My OH had a go at seeing them off yesterday by flail mowing their nest… they weren’t having that!
Wasp removal man arrives at 10am, presumably with his massive testicles in their own separate trailer behind his van….

Cheers all

Edited by CTO on Thursday 7th October 21:09

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Morning all,

Update was planned, until this happened….


Brushcutting without visor fully down and took a projectile straight to the left eye.

Diagnosis: cut to the surface of the eye, over the pupil. Photosensitivity is horrendous and my eye looks like I have been on an all nighter with Keith Richards…

Could have been so much worse though. Probably a timely lesson not to get slack with PPE…

Docs reckon it will take 3-5 days to sort itself out so I am out of action until then… a shame as I had plans to chop the fir tree down today…

Scores on the doors regarding the wasps are……

Apparently the entrance hole to the nest isn’t easy to access now for Ross the Wasp removal man to put the killing chemicals in. He said it looks like it’s been covered over…..

My OH gleefully pointed out that she had rammed it with the flail mower. Ross looked a bit waspish himself at that point and left while muttering “I’ll be back”



Wasps 1 - Ross the Wasp 0

Edited by CTO on Saturday 9th October 18:36

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Had the harness on, and the ear defenders and even the visor, just not fully down.

Agree though. Absolute schoolie…..

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Starting to feel a bit better today with liberal coatings of antibiotic cream.

Learnings have been learnt for sure and as said (and echoed by others) this could be a very cheap way to have avoided future long term pain…

Anyhow, moving on.

Next on the list for chopping down/removal is the large (ish) Fir tree in the garden..


And, the cooker, the log burner and the bloody awful Venetian masks finish tomorrow on EBay..intrigued to see what (if any) is forked out for those…..

Cheers all

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Thanks all!

I'm still out of action. I am going to look at a potential house related purchase at 1pm though, albeit with one eye.

I will update on outcomes this avo

Cheers all

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Afternoon all,

Viewing went well today and we are now also the proud owners of……….











And my fave;


And a video of our first drive with me as copilot because I’m a spanner and can’t use PPE in the garden….

Click below (hopefully)
https://youtu.be/XZFcTD5naoI

She is a 1968 88’ series 2a with the 2 1/4 petrol with overdrive. Slow as hell, noisy as a bag of spanners in a washing machine and as drafty as a Dickensian cookhouse….

We adore her.

Cheers all

Edited by CTO on Monday 11th October 18:16

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Thanks all,

After a few false starts I can now mostly see out of my L eye. Last few days have been bloody miserable though, stuck in the house and not even able to take the new purchase for a spin.

Landrover is now insured . £150 PA with other half as a named driver, fully comp and with agreed valuation option.

Going to try and take down the fir tree tomorrow, either with a chainsaw or I am tempted to simply tie a rope to the rear bumper of the landy and just pull it over… pretty sure this is a bad idea..

Architect drawings also arrive tomorrow eve along with “Jon the Architect” to discuss our plans. Plans which are potentially changing by the looks of things. OH is wanting to now extend further outwards at the back of the house and add a small balcony to have coffee on of a morning so we need to find out how much that is going to raise costs by..

I’ll post the plans when they arrive and welcome thoughts from the collective about how they may be optimised.

In other news, had our quote back from the power company to re route the pole in the back garden (and mains line to the house) by about 10 feet.. turns out it costs £650 a foot…

Might need to think about how we bring that down a bit…. Doing our own trenching etc……

Cheers all,

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RichB said:

Is all of that your land? If so it looks like you've got a load more
caves at road level in the bottom right of that image.

Trying to catch up on some replies

We currently own the land from the left boundary up to the right enclave (right word?) of rock houses

We also have the option from the current owners to purchase the rock houses on the right but the price they are seeking is currently far too strong for a variety of reasons so for the time being we have decided the ones we have are enough

Cheers all,

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Jobbo said:

If you do it in the Landy, make sure you video it:
https://youtu.be/YqmpVucBnvA?t=199

Given recent events I wouldn’t be surprised if that didn’t take out my other eye…

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Monkeylegend said:

Love it, and if the MOT history is correct it has only done 117 miles since 2006.

More to do with a temperamental speedo cable….

I downloaded a copy of the owners manual last night, available here for others to read with a cuppa: http://www.retroanaconda.com/landrover/manuals/2a_...

This part in particular made me smile



Cheers all,

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Eye has still halted play. It’s much better but still heavily photosensitive.

Managed to get the late FiL machete back from the garden machinery shop today… after I think 4? weeks…

It has lain in his garage since he passed and we wanted to recommission it for clearing undergrowth/chopping at things/Halloween/Crocodile Dundee impersonations…

Anyone know much about these?


Origin mark on blade >


Cheers all,

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Laurel Green said:

That's a WW2 machete. Clicky

Nice one, thanks

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normalbloke said:

And a full chain mail suit. You’ve got previous!

Seems fair