Another lock cottage is on the market.
Watford Bottom Lock Cottage is being auctioned on Thursday 5th March at Banbury Cricket Club, by Fisher German.
Location on Google Maps here, near Watford Gap M1 service area. The guide price is £175,000. I'm not sure who the current owner is.
Fisher German have experience of selling lock cottages. In the last couple of years they've sold Somerton Deep Lock, Claydon Top Lock and Bourton Lock cottages, all on the picturesque South Oxford Canal, and all of them gloriously isolated - without even road access.
I'd like it, but it's out of my league, sadly. Not unless I sell Granny Buttons to boost my funds. [Wash my mouth out!]
What will happen to house prices in the coming year, and is now the right time to buy for the future? I suspect they'll hold up well for a while simply because, as interest rates come down, bricks beat banks. People prefer the predictability of property.
Watford Locks simply can't rival Foxton as a tourist trap, not least because of the constant roar of the nearby M1 motorway and A5 main road. It's not as picture-postcard pretty as the Oxford cottages either, but on the plus side access is extremely easy, for bath chairs and ambulances.
My hearing is going – I'm sure of it. It's a family trait on my mother's side, along with fat faces, male baldness, arthritis and cheer in the face of decreptiude. Perhaps this is the moment to take my money out of the banks and 'return to the bank'?
I spent the night at Watford Bottom Lock in October 2006 and took photos of the cottage then. But they weren't good enough, so I deleted them. Damn.
All my photos of that day were rather dull. However, I did photograph the owner's owl in its cage, alongside the lock – perhaps the house is owned by a wizard.
Auction result - sold for £150,000! Andrew - I'm sure you could have afforded that, and I could almost have done, with an advance on my pocket money.
J-E
Posted by: Johnny Essex (John Kemp) | Saturday, 07 March 2009 at 11:01 PM