Still be there in another 30 odd years.

8 Rue Bucaille, Brevands

A house has been on this site since 1750

Last month we took a pumpkin over M et Mm Leboulanger, the people we bought our home from four years ago. We have kept in touch and last time they were with us I showed them the pumpkin patch and Ginette ooohed and ahhed and I promised I would bring one to her in October. During our visit to their third floor flat in Carentan they showed us again the pictures they had taken of the house when they bought it in 1977 and a few precious shots of the work in progress which we now understand took 10 years to finish. They talked about moving in during the late 80’s whilst Mike and I were busy making a family and living in our little cottage on the London Road in Bracknell. 

This is 8 Rue Bucaille in 1977, sitting by the pond is Eugene in the blue shirt. He bought the property for the land in order to keep cows, he was a butcher and wanted to rear his own. The land is now our garden but in 1977 it was a farm and with it came an old farm house and by all accounts it was in a bit of a mess. Eugene and Ginette then took on the task of renovating this house and for that we are very grateful.

The house was pretty much taken apart as they wanted to put height in the upstairs rooms and added an extra meter on before reconstructing the roof

We have 1980’s inner beams throughout and in the next picture you will notice that the beams actually went in the opposite direction. We know that one of the beams from upstairs was made into the mantelpiece in the kitchen so Eugene was frugal and careful throughout the build.  They once told us that all the wood that came out of the original house went into the wood shed and it took them five years to burn it all.

Here is the aspect which looks over our polytunnel. The upstairs hole is our side bedroom window and the bottom hole is the lounge window. We have been keen to look into these pictures to learn a bit about the build We can see that the door in our bedroom is in the same place.

You can see where the builder has added concrete blocks to lift the roof height. In the loft it is  clear  where the old roof used to come to and we have always  wondered how they actually achieved it, well there’s the proof.

All the windows and doors have stayed in their original position and Ginette said that they were really keen to keep the look of the house the same but make it grander and bigger, and I think they succeeded.

This picture was dated Autumn 1991 and we presume they were already moved in and had just finished installing the gates which still look as good now as they did then.

Here is Eugene, reconstructing the pond. We know this was before 1991 as the gates are not there but we were interested to see what it looks like  blow the water level. It all looks very solid I think it will still be there in another 30 odd years.