
ORIGINAL DECORATIVE ART by SUMMER JOY
HILL FARM FOR SALE
Photos
and Information
Welcome to SummerWare, home of the Animal Tea Cosies , and also now the home
site of HILL FARM FOR SALE !
photos and information.
Summer and Jim have finally
decided to leave England and move to Vancouver Island in Canada,
where Summer is from.
Thus HILL FARM ,
where Jim was born and raised and has lived all his life, is now up for sale.
The farm is located on top of a hill in
Warwickshire, midway between Rugby and Coventry, on the Fosse Way and A428. The
site offers fabulous panoramic views of the Avon River and surrounding
countryside, which are much admired by everyone who visits. The
location offers wonderful
privacy and seclusion while at the same time being very conveniently located for shopping and
commuting.
The property includes a large old
house, a productive organic apple orchard with a variety of heritage
apple trees, mature berry
bushes, a big fertile veggie garden, and fabulous, unusual large flower
and shrub gardens with many interesting plants and
flowers. All gardening at Hill Farm has been done organically for
many years.
There are barns and stables and
workshop spaces surrounding a big courtyard at the back of the house as well as a huge roofed
shed area for machinery, hay, firewood etc. At the moment, one of
the barns houses a large vintage diesel engine made by Mirrlees,
Bickerton & Day in 1939, coupled to a generating set. This will be
removed to the Internal Fire Museum in Wales unless the farm is
bought by an enthusiast who wishes to retain it and run it in
situ. It would run well on used vegetable oil as well as
diesel and ensure that the new owners would have no problems with
future power shortages. We have three phase electricity to the
property so no difficulties running any type of machinery.
The property includes a
seven
acre fenced ancient ridge and furrow meadow complete with a large pond
in an old claypit, which
is managed solely for the local wildlife. It supports a wide
variety of flowering plants, grasses and fungi and is
frequented by many native and migratory species of birds, including
buzzards and on one notable occasion for a week by a young
male hen harrier, which caused consternation to the rabbits! It has
been grazed every summer by cattle belonging to a local
farmer. The pond is frequented by moorhens, several species of ducks,
herons, great crested newts and a wide variety of dragonflies and other
creatures and is an idyllic spot. The meadow is bordered on the north
and east sides by pre-Norman hedges belonging to the farm and ancient
trackways, giving access to miles of bridle paths. On the western side, the
meadow includes a belt of young trees planted in 1986. Hill
Farm is registered as an agricultural holding with the Rural Payments
Agency and receives payments under the Single Payments Scheme. In
addition, the many historic and natural features of the meadow
qualify the holding for Entry Level Stewardship which would enhance the
payments.
If you
didn't decide to renovate the house, you could always build the
house of your dreams on this amazing and very unique site. The existing house
has been much added to over several hundred years and has many rooms
which could be put to multiple use. There are four bedrooms upstairs, kitchen, dining room and
three sitting rooms downstairs, as well as a large conservatory still under construction which
overlooks the garden. Most of the windows are double glazed, most of
the roof space has at least some insulation and some of the walls are
insulated internally. There are two solid-fuel old Rayburns in
operation for heating, cooking and hot water as well as an equally
old wood-fired boiler connected to radiators throughout the house. A
good supply of firewood will be included in the sale and probably
a circular saw bench too. Provision has been made for installing solar
water heating panels.
Two windmills generate electricity to charge batteries which helps
power the household,
running most of the lights. Most of the house has not been changed
since the 1980s so you'd want to
renovate and decorate to suit your needs, but a large family would
certainly find plenty of
room in this house, where Jim's extended family all used to live while
working the dairy farm in
the old days. Needless to say, on a hilltop site like this,
flooding has never been an issue!
With some work this property could be
developed into a wonderful set-up for horses and/or a great smallholding/hobby farm for a
family of any size. It would also appeal to anyone with a strong
interest in alternative energy and technology. We are
inviting offers around £450,000, and if we haven't received an
acceptable offer by September we will be considering either auction or
informal tender. We will be living
at the farm until we leave for Canada sometime in October. We're currently
working
hard clearing out the
accumulated collections of several generations in preparation for
selling. We've posted lots
of photos on this page and on
the HILL
FARM page
so you can get a good idea of the place. As you can imagine, we're very busy at
the moment clearing everything out and preparing for our big move.
Please
read the website
carefully so you can get a good idea about whether HILL FARM is the
sort of place you're looking for. If you genuinely think you might be
interested,
we'd love to hear from you, so please feel free to email or ring us and
have a chat. Our number is 024
7654 2596, and you can email us at HillFarm@SummerWare.co.uk
.
Some of the Glorious Views from the Farm!


Part of the Front Garden

South-facing Conservatory under Construction

To see many more photos go to the Hill Farm Page.