Sunnycroft

I saw this ramshackle property the other day when I was yomping around taking dawn photos. Back-lit by the sunrise it looked mysterious and interesting; my first thought was, "Derelict Thursday!", and my second was, "Well, I'd definitely buy it."

Today when I went back to get this shot there was a freezing mist and the light was flat and drab, and the place looked forlorn. I immediately began to wonder about the circumstances that brought it to market: was it a family home that was being broken up to pay for residential care for an elderly parent; or was it the solitary lifetime home of someone with no living relatives, now in the hands of administrators because of an intestacy?

Of course, I'm projecting my own emotions at the recollection of selling off a family home onto a situation about which I know very little. It's quite possible that the previous owners had tried for years to get planning permission to rebuild their draughty, leaking, inconvenient old house; and that the day a property developer turned up on their doorstep and offered them a bucket of cash they went skipping off into a warmer sunset singing "Oh frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!", and are even now sipping cocktails by a pool somewhere.

The estate agent's relentlessly chipper brochure doesn't tell me much, other than that someone has gone to the trouble of getting detailed plans through. It doesn't even appear to state the asking price, though I can tell you that they want £350,000 for the plot and plans: you bring your own skips and digger.

This is my contribution to Derelict Thursday, once more hosted by freespiral and Himself. A couple more shots here,