Top Lock Marple: bungalow, marina and training business for sale

After yesterday's post about how to find canalside property, I realised that I myself wasn't subscribing to any specific property alerts.  So I asked Globrix to let me know when any property comes up for sale bearing the tag 'canalside'.

And - bingo! - on the very first day up comes an alert for a £1.1million property in Marple, at the junction of the Macclesfield and Peak Forest Canals:

Marple, SK6 - 5 bedroom bungalow for sale - £1,100,000 

That's a lot to pay for a bungalow, albeit with five bedrooms and beautifully stone-built, converted from old stables. 

But you aren't just getting a bungalow - you're getting a thriving waterways business too - including a whole 32-boat marina and the well-known narrowboat boating 'school' Top Lock Training.  What's more, you're even getting what used to be a 'granny house'.  I want!

True, your millionaire purchase isn't getting you the lovely two-storey Victorian stone house alongside.

But when you stand on the original, beautiful, Telford-era roving bridge opposite, and gongoozle, you'll almost feel like you are master of a whole canal junction and lock flight, complete with its own heritage society.  

The current owners are quite wistful, as they summarise, on the estate agent's website, what you'll be buying and why they are selling:

During the 32 years we have lived here we have built Top Lock Bungalow from the old stables, firstly as a 'Granny House' then as a holiday cottage, maintained the marina, increasing the numbers of berths, built an extension to the house to give our growing family more room, run a restaurant boat for 23 years also a day hireboat, and we have fitted out and repaired boats from the workshops which we re-built in 1994 ( these had been demolished when the boat building trade ceased in the late thirties).

Top Lock House, with such a lot of history in its walls, has been a wonderful place to live and work and to bring up our family. The work we have done here has brought us into contact with a huge number of people, some of whom have become good friends who regularly visit us while travelling the canal system on their boats.

However, it is time to move on to our semi-retirement with happy memories of half our lifetime spent at Top Lock.

It's rare that such an opportunity comes up.  Marple Junction feels like it's got everything in a canal.  If I was an indulgent Arab sheikh and had a spoilt teenage son who'd got canals in his head after a single boating holiday, I'd buy it for him immediately for twice the asking price.

Actually, it's not quite got everything.  It's not got broadbeam locks.  But who needs those?

One of the joys of the Marple lock flight is the steep, deep, regularly-spaced locks, which provide a terrific workout for fitness freaks and make a superb 'multigym'.  You get the aerobic exercise from running between the locks, and the 'weights' from working the locks themselves and bow-hauling the boat in between.  Sixteen sets of reps.  All you need is a properly worked out exercise program to ensure you work the right muscles at the right pace in the right order. 

I once photographed a famous boxer in a nearby gym, and spoke eloquently to his trainer about using Marple Locks as a healthy, refreshing outdoor gym.  He said, "Tell you what, after we've got this next fight out of the way, call me and maybe we can set up a physical training program for your boaters".  

I've never followed up this suggestion.  Lazy me.  But an enterprising purchaser of the house, grounds and marina could make a thriving summer fitness business out of Marple Top Lock.  You could call it Top Lock Training, there's a thought.

Some great pubs nearby, too,  to undo all your good exercise.

Homeward-bound gongoozlers at Marple junction, pub closing time, Oct 2007.

Comments

[Halfie]

If anyone wants to know, the holiday cottage is fully booked until June. (Jan tried to book it, unaware of this post, for a few days at the end of this month.)

While I have your attention, does anybody know of a canalside holiday cottage or B&B in the midlands/north which might be available at the end of March? Or even a boat for boatsitting? We are two reasonably well-behaved people!

[carol]

If I win the lottery this weekend, it's mine!!

[Kevin]

Don't forget there's a 5-bed house, a smaller holiday cottage and a training business too. It's quite a package - maybe it's not so much price as a lack of available finance at the moment that's preventing the sale.

[Alice]

Difficult to know how much the site is really worth, in business terms, without knowing how big a cut BW take annually.

[Capt Ahab]

What a lovely thought.

Valuing marina's is an interesting concept and I suspect that not enough are traded to estiblish a firm price.

Lets say 32 boats all paying £1000 pa = £32,000 less expenses so the income would be somewhere just above £20k pa.
How much would you need to invest to make £20k per annum - maybe £200k if interest rates are 10% or £400k if rates trend at 5%.

The other way to look at it is to connsider the cost of providing a marina berth which is, I think, about £8k each, making the site worth about £260k

Valuing investments like marina's is tricky and much depends on the demand for moorings and the prevailing rates paid on other investments.

Never mind the maths. Andrew is right - its a glorious dream!

[Andrew Denny]

Fiona,

Yes indeed, I should be buying it! Can you lend me a million?

[Fiona]

If it was built as a 'Granny House'you should be buying it, Andrew.

[Kevin]

Yes, I too spotted it -- but in the old fashioned way. There was a "for sale" board up!

[Andrew Denny]

Adam,

Oh dear, then I do feel a twit.  I didn't know they had it for sale.  The price seems reasonable for a whole marina, especially in that location.  But maybe it's the recession.

[Adam]

It might be a rare for a property like this to come up for sale, but this one has been on the market a long time -- at least a year. This suggests to me that the price is too high.