Property News · February 3, 2018

'It’s like a child’s drawing of a house': a fisherman's cottage in Berwick-upon-Tweed


How an old cottage and a sea mist inspired bestselling children’s book illustrator Helen StephensHelen Stephens and her partner, Gerry Turley, may be from Darlington and Glasgow respectively, but after 17 years in London, they had forgotten how cold the north-east of England can get. It didn’t help that they arrived in Berwick-upon-Tweed in 2010, a few months before the worst winter the town had suffered in years. “The snow was so deep, it took us half an hour to walk 100 yards to the beach,” Stephens says. “When the wind whipped off the North Sea, we felt as if we were on the edge of the Earth.” Stephens joined a knitting group to get to know people; they told her to buy sturdy boots, woolly jumpers and waterproofs.Their house was as uninsulated as they were. Turley and Stephens slept with hats on. They hung thick curtains and thermal blinds over the doors, and installed a stove in the living room. “It completely changed the atmosphere” she says. “It warms every room.” All the fireplaces had been boarded over and the couple are now gradually opening them up. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
Read more…‘It’s like a child’s drawing of a house’: a fisherman’s cottage in Berwick-upon-Tweed

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