Country Matters: Slugging it out over a gutting job

AS EVERYONE knows, the grass is always greener beyond the fence, whether the barrier forms the boundary of yard, garden, field, farm or country estate. So when I heard that a nearby farm was about to come up for sale, my curiosity was naturally aroused.

It was not that I had any intention of moving. Our present house, though ancient and lopsided, suits us very well, and we have enough land to keep us busy. Yet the chance of acquiring more acres, and a house in an exceptionally favourable position, seemed too much to pass up without investigation.

The main asset of the property in question is its setting. The farmhouse stands in a shallow bowl of grassland at the end of its own lane, surrounded by fields. A few houses are visible on a slope some distance to the north, but otherwise the view is perfectly rural: meadows rise all round to the woods that ring the horizon at a comfortable distance. It would be hard to exaggerate the peaceful nature of the scene, or the harmony of the way in which woods and fields undulate sweetly over the shoulders of the encircling hills.

Besides, the farm's 90 acres are highly covetable - and early rumours reported that all the land was to be sold. In front of the house stands a lovely old orchard of apple and pear trees, with a brook running down one side. Behind, much of the ground is what people hereabouts call 'banky' land - fields too steep for cultivation, which are good only for sheep or cattle. But what they lack in purely agricultural value, they make up in visual attraction.

They also contain fascinating hints that archaeological treasure may lie beneath their surface: there are angular ridges that can scarcely be natural, and at one point a spring rises in a conical cavity. Some locals believe this to be a bomb-crater, caused by a stray hit during the Second World War; others say that the spring was the one from which, in Roman times, slaves carried water up to the settlement around the Temple of Mercury on top of the hill. Traces of a well worn footpath are still visible, especially when low sunlight strikes across the contours in the evening.

So far, so good. Now for the snags. One, which emerged in due course, was that only 11.5 of the 90 acres were for sale; another, that the house was in a state of extreme decrepitude, having been neglected for many years.

It belonged to a family whom I will call Chilcott, renowned locally for scarcely being part of the 20th century. The most recent owners were two brothers who, though they ran the farm together, were said not to have communicated for many moons except through their solicitor.

It cannot be said that the family has a good conservation record. Until the mid-Seventies one branch of it owned another farm, on top of the hill less than a mile from the one now for sale. Eyewitnesses report that in the other house there was no plumbing indoors, but that the outer doors were perforated by holes big enough for rabbits to bolt through; much of the interior was taken up by great stacks of logs and brushwood.

The most celebrated incumbent was Miss Chilcott (older stepsister of the present vendors) who wore button-boots and a black beret, and was so shy that if she saw anybody approaching, she would run for the house and hide. The only occasions on which she risked public appearances were those when she won on her Premium Bonds: then you would see her running, down through the woods and across the fields, to the post office in the village, apparently under the impression that if she did not claim her winnings quickly, she would lose them.

All members of the family were deeply suspicious of strangers, and whenever an emissary came up from the village to collect money for some charity, they would escort him or her to the boundary of their land, not parting company until the visitor was safely off their ground.

When they sold that farm they shifted down to another, in the valley immediately below, and there, too, they lived in primitive conditions. It was in no way their fault (though somehow characteristic) that, soon after they had moved on yet again, this house was bulldozed and buried by its new owner, who feared that it was about to be listed as being of architectural interest, and that he would not be able to afford to do it up. So perished the farmhouse famous for producing the best cheese in the area.

The house that had just come on the market was also renowned for its cheese - the herbs growing on the grass banks must impart special savour to milk - and it includes a traditional cheese storing room. The building (or most of it) is still standing, but it is in a parlous condition.

The announcement of an impending auction - 'Traditional Cotswold country farmhouse for improvement . . . Price Guide: pounds 100,000- pounds 130,000' - ignited a blaze of interest. People visited the house in droves, and one Saturday alone more than 30 cars bumped down the lane.

'For improvement' was the key phrase. A sudden, energetic clean-up had ripped out the bushes and trees that had grown up round the walls. The clearance revealed a simple but pretty stone front, facing south- east; yet even a cursory inspection showed that the house had fallen into grave disrepair.

A lean-to addition at one end was held together purely by tie- rods: that part, if retained at all, would have to be levelled and rebuilt from the foundations. Even if the main roof was in reasonable order, every window- frame in the place was rotten. Behind the remains of wallpaper there gaped wide cracks, suggesting that the front wall had sunk, or (worse) was still sinking. Above an outside door into the cellar (which was full of broken-down cider-barrels) a stone lean-to had collapsed.

'Looks like a gutting job,' observed one young prospector as he picked his way down a shuddering staircase. 'The cost of putting it right would frighten you to death.' He seemed amused by the dereliction, but his wife looked horrified.

In the village, gossip raged about who would buy the house, and the price it would fetch. Surveyors from two rival camps both put the cost of making it habitable at pounds 180,000. After that expense, one would still have to demolish the concrete cowshed built almost on to one front corner, and stabilise two attractive but rickety stone barns. Even then one would be left with the fact that a footpath comes past the back door and that Mr Chilcott Snr proposes to augment the black Dutch barn immediately behind the house with new agricultural buildings.

None of this seemed to deter the punters. Recession or no, more than 100 people packed the auction on Wednesday evening, so that latecomers had to stand round the walls. Interest in two other properties was modest, to say the least: one scraped up to pounds 35,000, and the other was withdrawn without reaching its reserve.

The farm was a different matter. From a start at pounds 90,000, bids rapidly soared past the auctioneers' upper estimate of pounds 130,000 and crept above pounds 170,000 as two young couples slugged it out, pounds 500 at a time. In the end, the property was knocked down at pounds 178,500. The buyers looked shattered - and well they might. As for myself, I was glad I had not been involved; yet all the same I felt a pang of envy.