Cornish Cottage

Hello Blogging Friends.  I have something a little different to share in a post today.  

I have met so many wonderful friends all over the world since I started my blog.  

Still to this day amazes me the connection you can make with someone even if you have never met.  

I have found so many friends that I have connected with and have shared a friendship with over the past 8 years.

One of the sweet friends I met lives across the pond and has her beautiful cottage up for sale.  

I asked her if I could spotlight her sweet cottage and let her tell the story of this special place.  

I hope you enjoy getting to know Gilly and her sweet cottage home for sale.

If any of you are looking for a beautiful English Countryside Cottage here it is!  

I used Gilly's words on most of the pictures to describe this sweet cottage.

I hope you will enjoy learning of the history of this special home.

Cornwall

English unitary authority

Description

Cornwall is a county on England’s rugged southwestern tip. It forms a peninsula encompassing wild moorland and hundreds of sandy beaches, culminating at the promontory Land’s End. The south coast, dubbed the Cornish Riviera, is home to picturesque harbour villages such as Fowey and Falmouth. The north coast is lined with towering cliffs and seaside resorts like Newquay, known for surfing.

Love the sweet blue front door.  So welcoming.

The history of our cottage:

"It was built in 1842, and was originally a farm worker's cottage.  

This belonged to the Earl of Edgcumbe, being part of his huge estate.  

We have been told that the Earl of Edgcumbe gave our cottage to his mistress, because she became pregnant - with the proviso that she never contact him again!

We bought it in 2000.  It was meant to be a holiday home for us, until we retired and then we planned to move there from the Midlands (where we lived at the time) which is about 280 miles away from Cornwall.

Fate took a hand, and in the middle of that year I became ill, and was eventually diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E.  

At that time Neill had his own business, which he could continue in Cornwall - so we took the plunge and moved down full time in December 2000.

The cottage was in a poor state when we bought it, and we had to have it rewired before we could move in.  

Initially we just decorated it and had carpets put down."  

Me:  I love the history of places like Gilly's.   Who lived there and what kind of life they had!

Swooning over that Shed.  More about that later.  The grounds of this cottage are spectacular.  Swooning!!!!

"Over the years we have had the garden restored to it's former glory, which revealed a small pond and we have got many shrubs and trees.  

We would class it as a traditional Cornish Woodland Garden."  

"Lastly, the cottage is situated up a narrow lane - originally leading to the farmhouse - which has now been divided into 2 cottages.  

It is in a truly tranquil setting, being unknown even local people.  

We are fortunate to have a paddock and an orchard next to us, on one side."

This is where I would be hanging out all the time.  Is this shed not the cutest!

Just swooning!!!
If I owned this sweet shed I would put in a little bed or hammock to sleep out on cool summer nights!  Ahhh love this sweet shed!

"However, we then began to restore it and we started in the lounge, where we discovered the traditional Inglenook Fireplace (complete with a cloam oven at the side).  

The original fireplace had been smashed and bricked up and then a wall built along the room, which covered the cloam oven.  This oven was used to bake bread."

"Our builder restored the Inglenook Fireplace and we sourced a beam from a reclamation yard, which had originally been in a church.

"In the early days, we decided to remove a cupboard which had been made under the stairs, because it was damp.  

When we had done that - Neill noticed that there were bricks under the first step.  

He removed them and a couple of days later when he went upstairs that step gave way. 

 It turned out that the stairs were rotten - hence the need for those bricks."

"We then had some new stairs made - exactly the same as the others.  

Later we had new doors hand made. 

The door going from the lounge into the porch, is a stable door.  

This is wider and lower than normal size doors. 

Also the outside door of the porch was handmade. Again wider than the normal sized doors".

"The kitchen and bathroom is an extension to the cottage, done by the previous owners. We have had them refitted in recent years, and decided that modern was best for the extension.  We did have a modern stable door fitted to the kitchen".

 Then our builder put in new handmade window frames and built a window seat (with storage below).

The previous owners had taken up the original slate floor in the lounge and used it in the garden - such a shame.

So we decided that we would put down the original cottage sized floor boards - which are considerably wider than those of today.

  We found just what we needed from another reclamation yard and they had originally been in the waiting room of Exeter railway station.  Exeter is a cathedral city in Devon."

"Last year we had the cottage painted, inside and out and had to have some internal plastering done upstairs". 

Hope you loved learning about Gilly's sweet English Cottage that is up for sale.  I love all the beautiful restoration they did to keep the cottage true to it's previous style.

If you would like more information on the sale of this sweet cottage you can go here.

Thank you Gilly for letting me spot light your wonderful English cottage for sale.

Enjoy the new week ahead.
Always thanks for stopping by for a visit.
Hugs,
Kris