And so it continues

Deep ravine at the bottom of the garden but what a view

Delves Farm Cottage just in case anyone else would love to live in the middle of nowhere

Like Em says house hunting can be exciting and throw up exciting possibilities and so it was with this cottage today.  Why we had asked ourselves was the place full of gothic furniture, of course the answer came when we met the owner, a stone mason named Paul, 80 and still going strong, Yorkshire air is extraordinarily exhilarating!

The cottage was delicious, LS said how would you describe it quirky maybe? no said I made by someone who loved it dearly, and though tastes differ, it was all  frills, furbelows and roses in the bedrooms there was some remarkable craftsmanship by a man who carved stone for cathedrals.

It had been brought about 30 years ago an old wreck of a barn, and when Paul and his wife moved in eventually he had restored it to a long narrow cottage, with a lovely garden.   His wife had died 10 years ago, and everything remained very much the same from that period.

It sits high above Egdon up a steep and narrow lane in a hamlet of four houses, so probably when the snow comes that's it....... Travel further along the lane and you are over miles of  moors down to Rosedale Abbey.

The central part of the house has a small minstrel gallery, below is the dining room leading off into one corner, in the centre is an open chimney, so that you can have two fires, one in the hall, and the other in the sitting room.  There is a small kitchen, off which there is what Paul calls a 'breakfast room', again small, originally a study.  Water is indeed from a spring, and there is electricity, phone and hopefully internet access.

The garden is beautiful, walk to the end to the white balustrade, and look down on one of those deep ravines, coloured by the dying leaves of larches on the other side and the river rushing below.  The white balustrade would have to be sandblasted back to its original colour, white is too off putting in this landscape. There is another area of land, belonging to the tenant farmer of Lord Normanby alongside which Paul also keeps neat and tidy, he has fashioned it into two smaller gardens, though of course it is an ideal building site, unfortunately, or fortunately there is no mains up here for it to be developed.
Pretty place, but slightly out of the way...  We had lunch at Lastingham, famous for its church, there is a pub opposite the church, in which you can buy rabbit pies to take home...

Funny little sign

Grouse butts up on the moor

derelict tiny cottage

I presume this cross is for pilgrims down into the valley and Rosedale Abbey