We bought West Auchenhean in 2017. At the time it was a brave decision as the property was uninhabitable having lain empty for a number of years. Not completely empty though… while ’empty’ it was used as a very successful cannabis farm by Glasgow drugs gangs! We were also unable to get access to view the property before buying it so yes, a brave decision. Some things were worse than we expected, some as bad as we expected. The location, the owls, the gardens were all better than expected though. There are some before and after photographs in the Gallery for anyone who is interested.
The property consisted of the house, barns, stables, piggery and 15 acres of very overgrown grounds. The roof was missing in places and water had poured into the house for years, and with most of the rooms having been used for cannabis growing the mould and dampness and smell was awful. We managed to make the cottage section habitable fairly quickly, although habitable doesn’t mean watertight or windproof. We had running water, some power, cooking facilities and in theory we had heat. In practice however the rotten windows and holes in the walls meant that inside temperatures were usually similar to outside temperatures no matter how many logs we had on the stove. It was more like camping for that first year! The initial renovation work focused on the main house and that is where we live now. Having moved into that section we then began renovations to the cottage, completing them in time for guests in 2020.
We plan further works in the future. We have planning permission for Glamping Pods in one of the fields and planning permission to convert the two barns into houses. At the moment though we are just concentrating on the cottage, our guests, and enjoying this wonderful location.