About

Written on August 31, 2009 – 11:10 am | by Chris |

So, where to begin, I suppose i should explain I have always had this ambition to own my own castle, or island, or better still my own castle on my own island. A few years ago I decided to do something about it, I used to spend most weekends in Scotland, it made a good break from business and allowed me to search for an island for sale.

I didn’t really find what I was looking for, I didn’t want to live in the northern section where it was bitter cold, a friend of mine who had lived in Scotland had told me about a part of Scotland where you get the gulf stream and the climate is nice, but alas, I never found a castle or island that fit the bill.

 

I had friends who had holiday homes in France and this always appealed to me,  I thought, somewhere along the line we will take a holiday and see what was on offer, at the time one of my businesses was dealing in gold and diamonds, mainly supplying jewellers, one day while calling at a friend of mine’s jewellers, France got mentioned and he showed me some photos of a property he had for sale in France, I booked the ferry and the following week landed in France for the first time.

I did smile to myself as I struggled with the French phrase book I had bought  on the ferry, I never liked French at school and didn’t pay munch attention, My French teacher (Mrs Barton) would have laughed, I thought.

 

Anyway, to cut a very long story short I bought the house with the intention of using it as a holiday home, which we did for about 5yrs.

 

Five years on and at the time I had several computer shops in the UK, businesses was getting quiet and as I employed a lot of staff at the time I thought maybe it would be a good time to sell the shops and move to France, the thought of only having myself to worry about appealed to me, and to be fair I felt I could earn as much as a sole trader with no staff or wages, so, I did just that, I moved to France full time, I did keep one of the shops on for a while but the staff just didn’t work the same when I wasn’t there, so I sold it and concentrated my efforts in France.

 

So after a year or so sorting out my new French business and establishing things, I then turned my attentions back to my ambition of owning my own castle.

 

I did look at a lot of castles, most were far too big, fine for someone who wanted to run a hotel or B&B but I didnt have the time for that, I didn’t want to buy a massive castle that would be very expensive to run and end up living in a small part of it, I also wanted a medieval castle as opposed to a renaissance castle, I love history and especially the medieval period.

 

Just as it looked like I would never find what I was looking for a builder friend of mine said he had a quote to do for a roof on a small medieval castle and did I want to go with him, I jumped at the chance!

When we arrived I fell in love with the place, it needed a lot of work doing but nothing I couldnt sort out, and the cherry on the cake, it was moated, the moat had been filled in at the front but it still had a moat to both sides and the back.

 

The castle was up for sale, my friend had been asked to quote for a new roof for a potential buyer, it took me a week to find out which agent the castle was up with, but as soon as I did I went to make them an offer, unfortunately it had been sold, another English couple had bought it, I was devastated! I thought the chances of finding something like this again would be dam near impossible, it was just the right size, about 300sq meters habitable when finished, it was medieval, and it had a moat.

 

But it was gone ,so back to my search! I looked at several more castles, including one where the owner (he was 91) would not sell as he wanted to die in the castle, he didn’t live in it, he lived in a apartment in town, but he wanted to keep the castle so he could die in it, I tried offering him a deal where I bought the castle and when he was ready he could come to the castle and spend his last days there, but even that was too big.

 

Several months passed, then, quite by chance, some friends in the village that I had told about missing the small medieval castle where having Christmas dinner with their family, he recounted my story about missing the castle, his daughter was an estate agent and she said “I’m sure its up for sale again, its in our agency window” a couple of days later on his return home, David explained what his daughter had said, I immediately went in to the local town and there it was, more expensive than last time but there and for sale non the less.

 

I went in to the agency and said I was interested in the castle, the lady I spoke to explained that the English owners had originally bought it to renovate, but he had an accident and was no longer able to do the renovation himself so they had put it up for sale, I made an ambitious offer (as I knew what they had paid for it) I expected them to counter my offer but they accepted, voila! It was mine.