At home with the Waltons (From Living Northeast)

At home with the Waltons

10:59am Monday 23rd March 2009 in

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The Walton family faced plenty of challenges when they moved into a tumbledown mill, not least persuading the former owner to sell it to them. Jenny Laue reports.

LIVING in a round house has its problems: furnishing it can’t be easy. On the other hand, there are no corners where dust can accumulate, and there’s something soothing about being surrounded by curves instead of sharp corners.

The unusual shape of their family home was just one of the things that attracted the Walton family to The Old Mill, just outside Ingleby Barwick, in Teesside.

Despite its tumbledown condition they were blown away by the views over the Cleveland Hills and moved in more than five years ago after persuading the former owner to sell it to them.

The mill’s history is a fascinating one. The building had been a barley mill and part of a working farm until, at the turn of the century, it was slowly but surely swallowed up by the ever-increasing urban sprawl of the town of Ingleby Barwick. To cope with demand, a second and third mill were built close by, which had the effect of displacing the wind and effectively putting all three out of commission. The onset of the Industrial Revolution further promoted the mill’s demise and, in 1904, the sails ground to a halt for the last time.

It stood empty until the Sixties when farmer Harry Golding sold it to luxury car enthusiast Ken Hart and his family. Incidentally, the reason why the mill’s neighbouring building, the old farmhouse, came to be the Fox Covert pub, was because Farmer Golding used to invite his employees for an evening drink to say thank you for their hard work.

It was car enthusiast Ken, however, who noticed the abandoned mill on one of his drives in his beloved Jaguar and who, in 1968, set about restoring it and turning it into a home for himself, his wife and their two children.

He knocked down three of the seven storeys, installed plumbing and electricity and converted most of the outbuildings into garages to park his restored vintage cars.

But with advancing age, it became more and more difficult for the him to get up the stairs. He was forced to move into one of the farmcottages down the road and the mill fell into disrepair once again.

And that’s when the Waltons came across it. “We weren’t actually looking to move. We were happy living in Ingleby Barwick,” says Andy, a self-employed property developer. “But Zoe got itchy feet and said she would like to move if the right property came along. Zoe doesn’t normally like old properties in case they have a ghost, but then we went into Yarm for a coffee one Saturday morning and saw the mill – the oldest, spookiest and most expensive property within our budget there was. I thought that’d be enough to put her off.”

The next problem was convincing Ken Hart they were the right people to take on the property. “The mill had been on the market for quite a while because if Ken didn’t like the potential buyers or what they were planning to do with the property, he would say ‘I’ll be in in touch’, but he never would. I think they had had more than 200 viewings for the mill,” says Andy.

But Andy’s love for vintage cars, especially Porsches, struck a chord with Ken, who still had several restored 1920s Rolls-Royce cars stored at the mill. “And when I said we wanted to bring up a family there, his eyes really lit up.”

The Waltons got the nod and since buying the Old Mill five years ago, they’ve been busy at work turning the unusual round layout to their advantage and creating not only a cosy family home but also a thriving bed and breakfast business.

“It’s been a lot of hard work,” admits Andy. “Everything was overgrown, the windows were blocked and you couldn’t drive up the drive. And when we’d cleared away everything, we realised the place was too big for us, so we came up with the idea of a B&B.”

Now the entrance to the main part of the mill, the bit that’s actually round, is a welcoming, stone-flagged foyer, with a reception desk, a rustic stone fireplace and seating area facing the back patio. A door leads off to the large kitchen area with its enormous chunky dining table, the idea being that all guests should breakfast at the same table to create a real family atmosphere. The kitchen also has a large bay window which floods the room in sunshine on a nice morning. An Aga cooking range in an inglenook and a breakfast bar, which separate the working and dining areas, complete the kitchen’s country charm.

Up the original wooden staircase, there is the family living room. Central to it is the large seating arrangement, with lots of squishy leather and soft throws. The rest of the furniture is kept to a minimum to avoid dead spaces when square cupboards are pushed against the curved wall. A large multi-pane window illuminates everything, including a second stone fireplace.

The next floor is the children’s domain. Here the Waltons created two separate rooms and the family bathroom, which is spacious enough for a separate shower and corner bath. And, as Andy points out, the kids’ rooms have the best views in the whole house, overlooking the Cleveland Hills and miles and miles of countryside in between.

Last but not least, we come to the master bedroom, which the family have kept as one large space. Its most outstanding feature is the spiral staircase in the centre of the room which leads up to the dome-shaped roof and skylight.

This was made by talented local blacksmith Adrian Wood and swivels to the side on a hinge, giving access to the roof on balmy summer nights or a view of the moon and the stars in the winter.

Several extensions and outhouses provide the guests’ accommodation – there are five large B&B rooms – and enough space for Andy’s vintage Porsches. And now that it is tamed, the mature garden, which gave the couple so much grief when they first moved into The Old Mill, is an attractive feature, with an elegant sweeping gravel drive, pleasant lawns and even an outdoor hot tub for guests.

■ The Old Mill Bed and Breakfast, Barwick Lane, High Leven, Yarm, TS15 9JR, 01642-769051, bedandbreakfastyarm.co.uk