Tunnels of Green: May 2026

A touch of whimsy above the mantlepiece in our living room
(and yes, the button does actually make a noise!)

Hello!

Well, here it is at last - a look at our 'new' house in Ledbury, which we bought in November 2024 and finally moved into at the end of July 2025.

We ended up here in Herefordshire after well over two years of fruitless searching for a modest dwelling with a small garden that we could actually afford. We had been hoping for something within 1-2 hours' drive of leafy Surrey, where we had lived since 2014, because Surrey itself was of course out of our price range, given it lies within the commuter-belt to London.

Not the best photo, but the only one I have with a dusting of snow!
(ours is the house on the left, with the cream-coloured portico)

I knew what I wanted, or perhaps more importantly what I didn't want: definitely no traffic noise, no useless freezing-cold-in-winter-boiling-hot-in-summer conservatory, and no bland, cookie-cutter house identical to dozens of others on an 'estate'.

I was hoping for a cottage, bungalow or semi-detached house with at least two bedrooms, a loo on the same level as the bedrooms (no clambering downstairs in the middle of the night for a wee!), either a proper, separate dining room or an open plan kitchen-diner large enough for the dining room to have some separation from the functional kitchen area, a bit of garden, and a garage or shed for Kevin's bikes (or space to install one). Ideally something with a little character, in a village or in a 'nice' town - definitely not in suburbia. Doesn't sound like an unrealistic wish-list for two people who have slaved away in employment for well over 40 years, does it?

Sadly, it became clear that our budget was just a little too small for us to find a property with those qualities in Hampshire, West Sussex, Wiltshire or Somerset. And trust me, it was not for want of trying. We lost track of the number of 3 / 4 / 5-hour return journeys we made throughout four counties over the course of more than two years, only to be disappointed, despite thorough advance research.

If a property was in our price range, there was always something significantly unfavourable that we couldn't get past - for example, ridiculously tiny rooms. I can't tell you how many places within our budget were so small that there was nowhere to place a garbage bin in the kitchen, no linen storage or capacity to install linen storage, nowhere to place a cat litter tray... and so on. Everyday practical necessities that just weren't feasible within the space and made us wonder how the people selling the property actually functioned as a household.

And so, after being pipped by higher offers on two properties that came close to fulfilling our wish-list (and I am still pining over this one in Croscombe, just outside Wells), we eventually had to cast our net a bit further afield, into Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. The result was that, at long last, we found a house we quite liked, that fell within our budget, and for which our offer was accepted.

The front of the house faces south, so in winter our living room gets sun
for a good stretch of the day

Another view of the front room, ready for Christmas cocktails with our neighbours

There are many things I like about our new house. It's definitely got character, with some quirky design elements and a few original, late Victorian features - even though I am not particularly enamoured of Victorian properties. Give me, preferably, a Georgian building with its massive windows and graceful simplicity, or else a modern mid-century design with a groovy vibe. The age of the house is a little unclear, but we understand it to be *very* late Victorian, meaning it is around 125 years old. The house was updated about 15 years ago, converting one of the bedrooms upstairs into a capacious bathroom, adding a third bedroom with a second bathroom up in the loft space, and extending the ground level to include a modern 'garden room.'

Most of the rooms are generally spacious by UK standards, with high ceilings. There's a wood-burning stove in the dining room, under-floor heating in the kitchen and utility area, plus of course double glazed windows and central heating - both of which are standard in British properties.

Traditional Victorian tile work on our front porch

Stairs leading up to the first floor bedrooms and bathroom

Our very spacious bedroom, upstairs on the first floor

Another view of our bedroom, with its double windows facing the street

The guest bedroom looks out onto the rear garden

Another view of the guest bedroom.
I love the quirky (and slightly wonky!) wardrobe doors with their air vents at the top

The main bathroom on the first floor is gigantic
(there's also a vanity, free-standing shower and of course a toilet, out of shot)

We have a small enclosed porch off the kitchen, leading to the garden.
It's the perfect place for pot plants and kitchen herbs

The wood-burning stove in the dining room
(decorated for Christmas, in this photo)

The house has a charming, fairly low maintenance garden, well established with shrubs and trees and no grass to mow or waste water upon. We think the original planter was aiming for a mediterranean vibe, given that we have a large, mature olive tree, cyprus trees and lavender galore.

A few of the plantings are not to our taste, so we've already removed some of those and replaced them. There is one spectacularly ugly tree that I loathe (I am awaiting Lesley Williams' annual visit to identify it for me!), but it will be a big job to dig it out, so that one's on the back-burner for now. I will suffer its unattractiveness for a bit longer.

Lavender about to burst into flower...

...and a few weeks later, lavender in full flight!

Dramatic clematis at the far end of the garden

View of the garden from the back porch (entrance to garden room on the right)

I'm not a huge fan of apples, so I gave most of these Bramley cooking apples to friend Roy who transformed them into a crumble,
but I did use the last few of the crop, grated into muffins

We have two gooseberry bushes, which is a fruit I'm not that familiar with.
I plan to make a chutney or something with this year's crop
(and - oh blimey! - the thorns on gooseberry are lethal)

Sea holly

Despite its many positive qualities, even before we put in an offer on the house we knew we'd want to change a few things.

One common feature of Victorian properties is quarry tile flooring in the kitchen. Because our house has been extended to the rear and renovated with a more modern kitchen, utility area and downstairs loo, the quarry tiled section is now in the centre of the house, which we have made our main dining area.

I am not a fan of quarry tiles.

I hate the dark red / terracotta colour of them, and their unforgiving nature - if you drop something on quarry tiles, it's broken. Additionally, we got a bit of a surprise when we removed the large rug that the previous owners had left behind. We had no idea they were going to leave it, but in the middle of winter we considered it wasn't a bad thing to have something over the top of cold, hard quarry tiles while we gradually moved our possessions up from Frensham and eventually installed our own rug.

Underneath, we discovered that the tiles were covered in efflorescence. This is a white, crusty substance that comes from mineral salts in the soil below the house. It's not mildew or mould. It doesn't smell damp. These quarry tiles are porous, and because many Victorian properties do not have a damp-proof membrane below them, mineral salts are continually seeping through the tiles. You can't just lay fitted carpet or other flooring over the top of the tiles because that forces rising damp up your walls. Our pre-purchase property inspection report had mentioned that there could be such an issue if we attempted to cover up the tiles with anything other than a breathable rug (eg wool).

The rug left behind by the previous owners, and which we left in place for quite some months over the winter, was made from recycled PET bottles 😱 So... NOT breathable!

This was the surprise awaiting us when we finally lifted the synthetic rug left by the previous owners (which we had left in place for some months over the winter, whilst we were still living in Surrey and driving up to Ledbury each weekend to do work on the house)

So, not only did the quarry tiles offend my aesthetic sensibilities, now I REALLY hated them. One of our first priorities, therefore, was to do some research on how to rectify the efflorescence issue.

After much internet searching I got a couple of quotes for cleaning, treating and re-sealing the tiles. *ker-ching* That's another couple of thousand pounds, thanks. Fortunately the work was undertaken during one of last summer's heatwaves so, with all our doors and windows open most of the week, the process was completed and all was dry within that time frame. It was a vast improvement, but I still ordered a custom-made wool rug (which took several months to arrive) so that 75 per cent of the quarry tiles are now covered up and I don't have to look at them.

The quarry tiles in the dining room - cleaned, treated and re-sealed (at vast expense)

There were also some really naff features in the house that we were keen to improve upon, the little pantry next to the kitchen being a priority for me.

In its original form, the pantry resembled a hospital sluice room - horrible, cheap, shiny white tiles. The mismatched shelving had been put up by somebody without a spirit level - nearly every single shelf sloped downwards - and with no regard to practicality or aesthetics. What should have been a fairly simple job to improve the pantry ended up being really time consuming for Kevin, as he discovered that he couldn't use the existing holes drilled into the tiles because even the metal shelving brackets running from floor to ceiling had been installed crookedly.

Anyway, at long last - many weeks after commencing the task and with much cursing and swearing on Kevin's part - our new pantry was ready for filling.

What the pantry looked like when we bought the house - mismatched shelves
that didn't line up, and most of which sloped

Not a hospital sluice room for the disposal of contaminated waste - it just looked like one!

Tiles painted, new timber-faced shelves that are actually *straight*,
and a light that comes on when you open the door.
Ready to be filled...

Et voilà!
For the first time in my life, I have a functional pantry 😍

Another thing that drove me crazy was that shelving had been erected either side of the fireplace / chimney breast in our front room. Did the shelves on either side mirror each other? No! They were fixed at different heights, which seriously offended my sense of symmetry. We pulled out the shelves and repositioned them so that they were a mirror image of each other.

That room also had wall lights that I truly disliked, even though some research revealed them to be quite pricey 'designer' items. Too bad; they had to go, replaced by picture lights above several large pieces of artwork.

The front room, prior to the shelves being repositioned and the room being painted

The wall lights that were in the front room. We did at least re-purpose the bulbs!

Our downstairs loo is a long and narrow space, with the boiler up one end. Not exactly a nice view when you are sitting on the toilet! We researched local carpenters and engaged a couple of young chaps to erect a couple of doors to hide the boiler and its pipework. A reasonably simple job, we would have thought. But no... the apprentice assigned to this job spent - I kid you not - something like ten hours over two days, trying to affix two lightweight pieces of timber to the plaster walls on either side of the boiler so that doors could be added. Now, we are aware that the approximately 125-year-old lime plaster is crumbly and needs a careful approach. But these supposed building professionals had to give up the ghost at the end of Day 2, and we were not charged for that element of their work.

Kevin subsequently had a crack at doing the work himself. Just a few hours later, hey presto - job done!

One end of our downstairs powder room, which looks very Centre Pompidou
with the boiler and exposed pipework that supply our central heating and hot water

...now neatly hidden away thanks to Kevin's carpentry skills

Lastly, the garden room.

My god - the absolutely hideousness of the decoration.

Firstly, the colours of the walls and skirting boards. You know the colour of tinned pink salmon - a sort of insipid greyish-pink? Imagine two walls covered in that colour. As for the skirting boards and doorframe, they were done in a greyish-olive. Look, I acknowledge these were possibly 'heritage' colours that the previous owner felt were appropriate. Myself? Literally EVERY SINGLE TIME I had to walk into that room I said out loud, 'I hate this room!'

I also hate the tiles, which are good quality and were probably quite expensive. But that doesn't make me like them any better.

The crowning glory, however, was the lighting; two of the ugliest wall lights in the history of wall lights. Honestly, you couldn't come up with anything so aesthetically displeasing if you really tried. They were conical half-spheres fashioned from chunky clay, with weird shapes cut out to allow the light to shine through. I told Kevin I'd rather have naked bulbs on the wall, and for some time we did, until I found suitable replacements. I confess I took immense pleasure in smashing the offending things to pieces after we took them down.

Ah, the gobsmacking repulsiveness of the garden room in its original state.
There was not a single thing I liked about this room

The room *almost* transformed with fresh paint, a large William Morris rug to hide
the awful ceramic tiles, and naked bulbs on the wall - a vast improvement on the hideous clay wall lights!

Side view of the new lights in the garden room

This is how the new garden room lights look when switched on.
They emit a gorgeous, golden, soft light (which is dimmable)

Another view of the transformed room, looking out to the garden

Since moving in last November we have had one particularly disappointing episode.

A few weeks before Christmas we were sitting in our front room (living room), minding our own business, when Kevin's head suddenly shot upwards and he said 'Was that a drip?'

Yes, dear reader - it certainly was.

Within a fairly short time the drip became faster, and a water stain appeared on the ceiling. Again, our engineer's report had indicated there were signs of there having been a leak in that room at some point, which had clearly been repaired, but that this might warrant further investigation or repair in the future.

A bucket was placed beneath the drip site, as this was late evening. Overnight, a fairly sizeable chunk of the ceiling fell in and the morning was spent desperately phoning local roofing companies to urgently fix the problem. Once that issue was rectified (the flat section of roof above the bay window was completely replaced), we then had to get the entire ceiling replaced because 125-year-old plaster tends to crumble if you attempt to just patch it up. Fortunately we got a great local chap who did the job quickly and flawlessly.

Oh dear! That hole in the ceiling got a lot bigger as the day progressed

But wait - there's more!

Whilst the roofing contractor was here fixing the ceiling, he noticed that one of our chimney pots was leaning to one side, and offered to climb up and give us a report on the health of our roof. Minutes later we were ashen-faced with shock as we were told that the entire roof was original, there were multiple issues and the roof would need to be replaced. Over the following month we sought the opinion and quotes of three further roofing contractors, and all were agreed - at the very least, we needed to completely replace the roof at the rear of the house because all the tiles on that northern side had significant frost damage and were crumbling away to pieces (in winter the low sun doesn't reach that end of the house).

Again, our building inspection report had indeed indicated that there would likely be work required to the chimneys and possibly the roof 'in the next ten years' but we weren't quite prepared for a significant repair of this nature only four months after moving in.

And so, finally in early April (it was one of the wettest winters on record, which pushed back roofing work all over the country), our contractors spent several days stripping off the old roof, installing a felt membrane which is standard these days, replacing all the supportive timber battens, replacing most of the roof tiles (they re-used as many of the old, undamaged ones as possible), rebuilding the valleys and repointing the chimneys.

The rear of the house was encased in scaffolding for a few weeks

Our excellent roofing contractors, hard at work

Perhaps the above will go some way to explaining why it's taken me such a lengthy time to publish the promised post on the house. Of course one expects that an old property like ours will need continual maintenance, however to be hit by a five-figure sum for major work only a few months after moving in... that was a blow.

It's been a very expensive 18 months, what with the cost of purchasing the house, moving in, repairs and cosmetic work, and also furnishing the house as most of our old pieces at Frensham needed to be replaced due to age, use and the fact they wouldn't suit the house in Ledbury. On top of this, we also had to replace our car during this period.

I was determined, wherever possible to go with second-hand / vintage / up-cycled items. Over a 12-month period I was able to source most of the furniture, as well as a large number of household items, from charity stores, Facebook Marketplace, Etsy, Ebay and websites like Vinterior and Vinted.

We absolutely adore the pre-loved, mid century items I managed to find.

One is an Ercol oak dining table from the 1960s, which came from a bungalow in Hampshire that was being cleared by the adult children of a recently deceased father. The table obviously held many precious memories but none of the three children could accommodate it in their own homes. I promised the seller I would send a photo of the table in-situ, once we moved in properly, and did so about six months ago. She was so happy to see her parents' old dining table being enjoyed in somebody else's home, and asked me to contact her again if we should ever be selling it, because she'd be hopeful of buying it back!

I have to say I impressed myself with the two retro, mustard yellow bedside lamps I found for our bedroom. The first one came from Vinted at the princely sum of £6. Unbelievably, I managed to pick up a second, identical one a couple of months later, courtesy of Facebook Marketplace. The price? ONE POUND. And they included a light bulb!

The 1960s Ercol dining table, bought from a house clearance in Hampshire.
Two of the wishbone dining chairs were bought on sale from a furniture store;
the other two came from Facebook Marketplace (they're all knock-offs of course)

Also in the dining room, this groovy 1970s upcycled sideboard came from Etsy

One of the two identical and incredibly cheap bedside lamps I managed to pick up second-hand, months apart

This is my absolute favourite piece of furniture ♥️
It's a stunning 1960s teak chest of drawers, sourced from Vinterior, which takes pride of place in our bedroom

Another bargain from Facebook Marketplace - this retro standing lamp
is in a corner of our dining room

Our sofa in this fabulous shade called Pumpkin is one of the few pieces of furniture
we brought brand new, from Darlings of Chelsea

We have also done a lot of cosmetic work. We've painted the front room, the garden room, our downstairs loo and the utility area opposite, as well as a significant stretch of the fence in our back garden and one of Kevin's two sheds. We've replaced light fittings and light switches. Solar lighting has been installed in the garden, and a sensor security light added to our front porch, plus a few additional power sockets throughout the house (we have a a fantastic electrician - he was a real find and has been recommended by us to a couple of our neighbours).

There's more work to be done; more painting, perhaps an upgrade of the second floor bathroom, and ideally we'll install solar panels at some point in the future.

Our ugly garden fence, prior to painting...

... transformed by a really (REALLY) cheap tin of fence paint, bought on a whim
whilst shopping for something else!

One of Kevin's precious sheds, looking quite rustic despite a coat of paint,
but it looks significantly better than its original state

Solar lighting along our painted garden fence

So there you have it.

We have nice neighbours. We're just around the corner from Ledbury's high street, and it's a historic, attractive and friendly town with very nice surrounding countryside. So far we've had four lots of friends come to stay and they all love the house, and the town.

However this is not my dream house, nor my dream location. After 11 years in Surrey, and eight of those at my beloved Frensham, I am missing the south-east. The incredible views from our house in Frensham, the nightly visits from badgers, the Surrey woods (the woods! 💔), the proximity to London, and of course all our friends there.

But for now Kevin is very happy here, and I am reasonably content.

We look forward to welcoming more visitors to our corner of Herefordshire, so friends and family - please come and stay!