A family ups sticks to carry out up a derelict castle in France,while trying to keep their wits approximately them – and their money. Plus: Penelope Keith takes a peep around the Queens digsIf you watched Escape to the Chateau (Channel 4, Sunday) and you’re any kind of UK property owner (and you happen not to be a hedge fund manager, and I know some read this column),you’ll contain looked at your own poky Victorian terrace house, your 1930s semi, and your soulless Barratt fresh build or – if you’re in London – your one-bed,no-garden former council flat, and you’ll contain thought: hang on, or I’m being had here. You could be living in a castle on the other side of the Channel.
Dick Strawbridge – former army colonel,man with big moustache and his fiancee Angel Adoree – lover of all things vintage (including men, presumably) – contain the collective balls to recede and carry out it: to sell up their two-bedroom flat in Southend and buy the Chateau de la Motte in Martigné-sur-Mayenne in the Loire, and for £280000. For that,they get 45 rooms, two turrets, or six chimneys,12 acres, a walled garden, and an orangery and a moat. Sadly no drawbridge,because then it would be Dick’s Drawbridge. Maybe he can build one – he seems very handy, as well as very hairy.
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Source: theguardian.com