How we ended up buying our holiday let in Flamborough. 1999 - 2023. Happy memories, tears and a devastating family health scare....

In 1999 we followed my dream of buying a holiday home abroad. I studied the Spanish language twice a week at evening school after I'd finished a high pressure day job and really got into the culture.

Then...... we ended up buying a derelict barn that used to be part of a chateaux on the Pas de Calais. We had a fantastic architect to renovate it and we loved it. We had our own woodland. The house and ancient wood covered 3 acres. We made a mountain of memories. It gave the grandchildren a real taste of French markets, French locals and all things French!

Memories of our house and woodland in France

After 17 years of owning 'La Grange', we were about to think about retiring . I'm not going to lie: I used to drive most of the day during my working life and so the 6 hour drive to get there from Nottingham didn't faze me but once I'd finished work, that drive seemed to get longer and longer. I also thought that because we were getting older we would have to rely on local trades for any maintenance issues and indeed managing the woodland. It wouldn't be cheap... or easy to keep our dream. Something was urging me to sell. It really was.

So, in 2016 it was sold to a young French family. Many tears were shed but we consoled ourselves with the notion that we'd find something in the UK. We set out a task of finding something suitable with a list of our wants: something within about a couple of hours drive from Nottingham, easily managed, friendly neighbours and hopefully somewhere that we'd get the same feeling of joy that we used to get when we pulled up at our house in France. Then we were smashed with a bombshell!! In May 2017 the biggest health shock hit our family like nothing we'd ever experienced before. It came out of the blue. It was all we could do to get through it. We did though and after taking a lot of extra deep breaths we started our search again. Our family deserved it.

We looked at lots of different locations: Wales, Sutton on Sea, Derbyshire, The Peak District, Whitby and more. I scoured the property sites each day and researched the localities. This would be our last buy so I had to get it right. I drew a circle of a 3 hour drive on the map and concentrated on that area. I put searches in place and followed up leads. 

Our search in the Wales, the Elan Valley. We really enjoyed this but the winding roads and feeling travel sick put us off

We found Flamborough!. We arranged a couple of viewings and set off. We got there an hour early so we called into a cafe on the high st, Scrumdiddlyumptious. we thought we'd check out the locals. The lady in there was brilliant. She was so friendly. She pointed us in the direction of a couple of properties nearby that were being renovated to a really high standard. They were lovely and would be ready to move into. They were right in the heart of the village local to pubs and activities, something we'd not had in France but would have liked. We asked the builder to reserve the first bigger one for us and we'd send over the deposit. When we got home however we realised there were a couple of things off the want list that it didn't have. There was only a small shared outdoor space and because the property had been empty for some while, others had gotten used to keeping all rubbish bins under that house's kitchen window. Not ideal. The square, I'd read on reviews, could be noisy at times. Not what we wanted. The agent, Ullyetts, told us about a little house not far from the square that just needed a little TLC. I'd seen this house on the internet and dis regarded it. It was newish, in a close and had been on the market a while. Reluctantly we followed the agent and went to give it a go. As soon as my husband saw it he said 'This is the one'. We've never looked back. Now it has everything we asked for. It's compact for sure but we love it. Hope if ever you visit you'll feel the same.

This is where we are today in Flamborough: