About | The Old Mill Norfolk

ABOUT HOW WE CAME TO OWN THE OLD MILL

Rewind to October 2017 before Covid-19, the horrors of Ukraine and the cost of living crisis... those were the days. We hadn’t even been looking for a property right then, but I was struggling living in London with the crowding and lack of space (having lived on the Lancashire moors for a lot of my recent life) so wanted the notion of acquiring a country property, at least as something to aim at in the future. Helen, my partner, also wanted to make plans to get out of the city albeit not until her children left school. As such, it was very much on the distant horizon until that fateful day seeing the Evening Standard property section whilst we were in the pub (which coincidently was called The Windmill). The property staring back at us was a 1780/1815 windmill with land, a cottage and outbuildings situated on the Norfolk/Cambridge border.

The thing is that despite us not looking for property at the time it ticked a lot of boxes. We always said we wanted an old and unique property, we needed to be within striking distance of London, we wanted plenty of space (for my mental wellbeing and to house lots of animals – one of Helen’s hobbies... or more like an obsession) and we desired a property we could make our own (I am a frustrated amateur builder). The biggest advantage to finding a property that needed at least some work was financial, we didn’t have a massive budget and hence wanted to get the property at the right price and then do a lot of the work ourselves to save money overall. So it was that the mill and its land/outbuildings satisfied all these requirements, but like anywhere it isn’t without a few drawbacks such as the road it’s on is quite busy, there are a few pylons around spoiling the view etc. However, you can spend forever looking for that ‘golden egg’ of properties and you’ll likely never find it and even if you do it’ll probably be out of range budget wise so we decided it had enough advantages for us to go for it and the rest is, as they say, history.

So, what did we get for our money? 4 acres of land, a four storey Grade II listed windmill (sans sails) confusingly with a 70s bungalow built on the side (more on this later), a one bedroom fully functional cottage, a slightly dilapidated garage, a 1950s barn/fruit shed (with planning permission in place to allow it to be converted to two holiday lets), a paddock, an arboretum (posh name for a field with trees in it), a hen enclosure and some scrub land. The previous owners (Peter and Catherine Harvey) had dragged the mill/bungalow back from the brink and turned it into a lovely and perfectly habitable home. They’d done the same with the cottage and hence we had a wonderful base to work from and somewhere we could live while we decided on our plans and executed them.

We didn’t move in until March 2018 (as a favour to Peter and Catherine who wanted time to organise their next move) and decided initially to head up there at weekends and when we could during the week/school holidays. The idea was to live there for a few months and decide on our plans, but having had a lot of time between having our offer accepted and exchanging/moving in we’d already done a lot of thinking and it wasn’t long after that we came up with the initial scheme some of which remains unaltered, but some of which of course doesn't due to changing times and minds over the intervening years.

THE ORIGINAL PLAN

So our five year plan as at May 2018 was as follows:

Renovate the garage to store the weekend car and the many tools we needed.
Build new sheds to house garden machinery, tools, animal feeds/logs etc.
Install solar panels for the three properties (mill, cottage and eventual holiday let).
Convert apple shed/barn to a holiday let.
Renovate/extend windmill – in summary renovate mill exterior including windows and roof, remove facing brick on bungalow attached to it and replace with reclaimed brick, extend bungalow up another storey in timber, add a new slate roof, new windows and renovate/redesign the interior.
Renovate driveway that goes across the property to the apple shed/holiday let.
Renovate cottage – in summary a new front wall, new roof, alter internal layout, new windows and renovate the interior.
Tidy up groundworks – flagging, gravel paths, smaller mill driveway, flower beds etc.

Obviously this is only a summary and more detail is given in subsequent posts on our blog. Also there are some smaller/side projects that arose and were undertaken in the midst of all this, but these were not planned originally.

THE CURRENT PLAN

At the time of writing the current progress log/future plan is as follows:

Garage renovated with new roof, doors, brickwork etc.
Poultry enclosure re-fenced and fox-proofed, duck pond created.
New sheds built to house machinery, animal feed etc.
Solar panels installed.
Apple shed converted to 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom holiday let.
1.25 million litre pond/lake built in scrubland including surrounding landscaping.
Paddock renovated with new fence, stable, land drains etc.
Driveway edged and topped across land to connect road to holiday let.
Mill re-roofed, re-pointed, new windows installed.
Mill courtyard wall rebuilt in matching reclaimed brick, new front garden wall built from same.
Bungalow attached to mill demolished and rebuilt as two storey building still attached to the mill (in progress scheduled for completion February 2024).
New car park to be installed off new driveway (May 2023).
Groundworks round mill to be undertaken including new patio, oaths, mill courtyard topping (June 2023).
New potting shed and aviaries to be built (June 2023).
Cottage to be renovated (scheduled for completion December 2024).

This plan will be updated with any major changes as and when they arise.

Chris, Dec 2022