About Gamekeeper’s Cottage
Gamekeeper’s Cottage is a 1950’s ex-farmworker’s cottage situated in the picturesque Berkshire countryside. Surrounded on three sides by open farmland and on the fourth by a quiet lane, the house benefits from the peace and quiet of the English countryside, while still being close enough to civilisation that we are sometimes able to hear the hum of distant traffic on the motorway and the planes flying overhead.
The house
The house itself consists of the original property which has three bedrooms, a large living room and a kitchen with a separate breakfast room. The addition of a single story extension sometime in the past has added a dining room, utility and downstairs shower and toilet
The property is actually now backwards when you consider the way that it is now used. What would have once been the front door opens out onto the back garden. The door at what is now the front of the house leads into the extension hallway and the door that separates the extension from the kitchen would originally have been the external side door of the kitchen
The outbuildings
Within the gardens of Gamekeeper’s Cottage, there are a number of wooden outbuildings that add to the usability and uniqueness of the property.
The stable area
The stables area comprises of a wooden stable building with 2 bays and a tack-room, with a concrete stable yard in front of them. Originally, the gate at the end of the stables led into the neighbouring fields and we believe at one time a previous owner actually stabled horses here and rented the surrounding field from the landowner. We are currently in the process of renovating the stables, which you can read about within this blog
The garden shed
Situated on the western edge of the property, the garden shed is a large (8m by 3m) wooden shed, that we are currently using for storage. It looks out onto the side garden of the property and since moving in to the property, we have been forced to replace to roof after the old roof was blown off in a storm and have also re-clad parts of the stable to remove some rotten cladding. We have also added thicker flooring internally and put up plyboard on the walls to improve the structure.
The garage
The garage is a mess, that is all that I can really say about it at the moment. It is probably 30 years old (if not more) and is in the process of falling down. We will eventually replace it, but at the moment it is low on the list of things to do.
The gardens
The whole Gamekeeper’s Cottage plot is approximately 2/5ths of an acre in size, some of which is obviously taken up by the house itself and the aforementioned outbuildings. The descriptions below represent how the various areas were before we started doing any work on them. You will be able to read up on changes we are making in future blog posts.
The front of the property
“Front” is not really an accurate description for anywhere at Gamekeeper’s Cottage as it doesn’t conform to the typical layout of a property in the UK, with a front garden bordering the road and a back garden behind. But, I am going to use that as a description of the part of the building where the parking and access to the stables and garage are. This area has a large gravel parking area and also a quarter circle patio. There is also a small fenced off area next to the stables and a wooded area situated behind the stables.
One feature of this area is the mature native hedgerows that surround 2 sides of the property (running along the border with the lane and the area nearest the stables). These are filled with brambles, hawthorn and other native hedgerow plants.
The side garden
The side garden runs along the western side of the house, in front of the garden shed. This area is mainly poor quality grass, but there is an existing flower border that runs alongside the house.
The back garden
The back garden runs along the entire back (southern side) of the house. This is again mainly poor quality grass, with existing flower borders running alongside the house. There is also another quarter circle patio at the Eastern end and a number of mature trees and bushes.
The orchard
One of the features of the property is the orchard that runs along almost the entire eastern side and contains 5 of 6 mature apple trees, together with a pear tree and a plum tree. All of the trees are probably over 20 years old and produce an abundance of fruit each year.
The vegetable plot
At the southern end of the orchard is an open area that has in the past been used as a vegetable plot, a use that we hope to put it to again in the near future. There is an old metal greenhouse here, but it is probably going to have to be replaced as it is currently being overgrown by the hedge next to it.