Burton Bradstock

The beach at Burton Bradstock

For some time we had been keeping an eye on a property on Prime Location in Burton Bradstock (BB) but it was about £35k over our budget. After our trip to Dorchester (see previous post) we arranged to go back to Dorset the following Thursday and arranged a tight schedule of seven properties to see in Weymouth on the Friday. While Ian was making the appointments I noticed that the house in BB had reduced in price by about £15k so we added it to our list, making an appointment to see it late on the Thursday afternoon.

The house is situated on the very edge of the village, on a quiet cul-de-sac within a few metres of open farmland yet just two miles from the busy market town of Bridport and just over a mile to the sea at the westerly end (or beginning, depending on how you look at it) of Chesil Beach. The village itself is a very pretty ‘olde worlde’ kind of place with two pubs, a lovely (and very active) old church, village shop, post office, a summer concert series and even a library (see their website). Everything we were hoping to find, in fact. The house itself had everything we were looking for, including an office, but needs a lot of updating, particularly the tiny kitchen. And it was still over budget. Oh dear.

After a disturbed night when I dreamt that the BB house had been snatched from under our noses before we had a chance to do anything about it we spent a very busy day viewing the other properties: a large Victorian villa with the potential to be an amazing house had we the energy to do it up (we don’t, but someone will), a small cottage right next to a pretty stream with a first floor balcony overlooking meadows, both just north of Weymouth, two relatively modern houses in Wyke Regis, a huge Georgian terraced house in need of lots of TLC, and a chalet-style smaller house in the village of Preston, to the east of Weymouth, with views over the bay. The seventh viewing was cancelled as they’d received and accepted an offer the day before.

By 5pm we’d finished and retired to the bar at Weymouth Pavilion for a drink and a review. One by one we went through the pros and cons of each property whilst all the while in my head I was shouting “Burton Bradstock! Burton Bradstock.” At 5.20pm we’d finished and Ian admitted that the house in BB was his preferred choice too. We decided to ring the estate agent to make an offer. A rather cheeky one, it has to be said and well under the asking price as it was quite a lot over budget and we’d have to spend at least £20k doing it up.

We put in our offer but as luck would have it the agent dealing with that property wasn’t available so we would have to wait until the next day at least for an answer.

Time to get back to our guest house (The Harbour Lights where we've stayed before and been very comfortable) and put our feet up before going out again to eat.