Milldam Croft

We completed the purchase on Milldam croft in July and moved out of the Schoolhouse in August.

With Milldam came 15 acres and, a bit unusually for North Ronaldsay, all the land is surrounding the house.

The house is need of extensive repair - we’ll basically remove enerything apart from the walls. The roof timbers are rotten and so are the floor timbers. The house comes with a couple of outbuildings which we are using for the animals and to store hay.

For the time being we are living in a Shepherd’s Hut, which we have repainted a lovely shade of dark ‘avocado green’. Most of our belongings are in the shed, which now doubles up as ur kitchen. However, it’s far from wind and water tight in there, and everything is becoming increasingly damp and mouldy.

Crofting law is complicated, and you can't get a mortgage on crofted land, which meant we had to borrow the money to buy the croft, and are in the process of decrofting the site that the house is on. We aren’t able to start any repairs until we do that and then get a renovation mortgage - even more of a headache than the ‘usual’ renovation!

Meanwhile we are warm and dry in the hut (albeit a little cramped with Mungo & Hagrid in there too!), and are enjoying having our own land for our animals and projects.