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Couple who couldn’t afford a house in the UK buy entire French village for £12,000
The village comes complete with five cottages, two barns, a paddock, a cider press and a bakery
A couple who couldn’t get onto the UK property ladder recently bagged themselves an entire village in France for a fraction of the price of a British home.
Paul Mappley and Yip Ward, both forty-seven, took their house hunt overseas after struggling to save up the pennies for a home here in the UK.
The two landscape gardeners, who appeared on Channel 4’s first episode of Help! We Bought a Village, first caught wind of the village when a friend offered to sell them their end-of-terrace cottage in 2019.
It was at this point that they realised the potential the hamlet La Bousliere offered, and decided to purchase the adjacent buildings for a grand total of €14,000 (£12,000), a far cry from the current average UK house price of £250,000.
Channel 4
The little village consists of five cottages, two barns, a paddock, plus a two-storey workshop, cider press and a bakery.
While exploring the buildings, the couple were particularly excited by the history of the old bakery, which would’ve been a communal space for many families before the French Revolution.
Paul said: “I love all the history that goes in with it as well again, you know, how many loaves of bread have been cooked in that for the village over the years, it’s just amazing.
“Something like this has so much history. It’s an amazing, amazing feeling, We’re very lucky.”
In the episode, the couple also discovered the hamlet’s very own well of water, which they hope to eventually use for flushing toilets.
Channel 4
However, despite all the excitement, the couple face one hell of a challenge refurbishing the hamlet, which has been left to ruin for the last few years.
The village currently has no electricity, and the cubbyhole for the stopcock was home to a snake and a salamander. One of the corners on the row of cottages has also collapsed.
But undeterred, the couple say they plan on turning the village into cottage lets as well as adding a glamping site. But before then, they said they would be ‘living camping style’ whilst ‘brining life back to their village’.
Paul said on his motivation: “It’s sad to see old buildings like this falling down. That’s why we wanted to buy it – there are not pots of money to do this but we’d like to try and get it to a point when it’s not falling to bits.”
Help! We Bought a Village airs weekdays at 4pm on Channel 4.