I went to have a look at a 400 year old cottage in Waltham with a view to father financing it for Joe to live in, work on and eventually sell on.

At present it has no heating and a kitchen and bathroom which are both minute and considerably older than I am. It is lovely - two good size rooms downstairs plus an attached workshop, and two bedrooms upstairs. I could live there quite comfortably, and for a young man the fact that there are two supermarkets, a pub, a kebab shop, a fish and chip shop, a Chinese takewaway, and a restaurant - plus a chemist for bouts of man-flu and other afflictions of the malades imaginaire - within a minute's walk (yes, truly - ONE minute) can only be a bonus. AND it has a guide price of £60,000.

highst~1

So, what is wrong with this little piece of heaven on earth apart from the fact that it needs a good bit of work doing?

Well, for me not much, although the lack of off-street parking and the tiny garden could be a snag. (On the other hand there is a car park outside the chippy, kebab shop, supermarket etc. just over the road.) For Joe (and most of my friends except Inge) there is a big problem. Most of the door cases are less than 6 foot - some 4 or 5 inches less, and the ceilings are too low to make enlarging them a possibility (apart from the rules surrounding listed buildings). Upstairs (or I should say upladder since the steps are so steep and narrow) the problem continues: I could stand upright in large parts of the rooms, but for Joe it would be a matter of staying in the middle under the roof ridge and wearing a hard hat at all times.

Having to go through one bedroom to reach the other one could also be a bit of a nuisance, and moving the staircase would only create a similar problem with reaching the bathroom - even if listed building regulations permitted such a thing. (My guess is that health and safety regs and listed building regs would put up a long fight against each other over those stairs whatever the buyer wanted to do.)

So will we be putting in an offer? We are having a think.