A close escape with a mental asylum

When I was in Cancun I got chatting to an couple that lived near Taunton. It transpired that they actually lived very close to a village called Cotford St Luke, which by coincidence I happen to know quite well. I have some friends that live there and five years ago I almost bought a rather swanky apartment there.

We’d had a particularly boozy night on local scrumpy so were wandering round the village trying to clear our achy heads when we walked past the old ruins of what used to be the Tone Vale Somerset County Asylum. The building in its heyday must have looked like a splendid Victorian building, resplendent in both its architecture and placement in the village.

A local property developer had bought the buildings and was planning on turning them into houses, with apartments in the central tower and a penthouse suite in the clocktower itself.

After talking to the developer for a while I asked to go have a look at the Penthouse, which was about half finished. The first thing that struck me was walking through the wonderfully tiled hallway and up the ornate stair cases to get to the front door. He warned that there was still a lot left to do and he wasn’t wrong, there was no kitchen, no bathroom, no staircases and you need hard hats. In a typically boyish fashion I thought “Oh cool, a hard hat!”

The layout was very impressive, the entire apartment was laid out within the actual clocktower itself. The living room looked out of the lower two sash windows, with the kitchen behind it. Eventually a staircase (for now a ladder) led up a floor to two huge bedrooms and a massive bathroom. Then up another ladder you went, which led into the upper echelons of the clock tower itself. This was a 25 foot square room approximately 40 foot high. It was lit by the light coming in from the four clock faces. There was a mezzanine level half way up the wall which would have made a great office. You could also climb a little spiral staircase which took you all the way to the top of the clocktower and out onto the little dome. (I did have some photos of the inside but cannot find them).

I fell in love. It was quirky, full of character, totally unique and a real eye opener with a large amount of space. The only drawback was the fact that it was in Somerset and at the time I worked mainly in London, but that was a small inconvenience in my mind.

Sensing that the guy was short on cash and that he needed to sell one apartment to firstly show that he has interest and secondly to give him some cash to carry on the project I told him that I was very interested and wanted to buy it. He was delighted and so we came round to talking about price.

He wanted £220k for it, which included finishing everything that needed doing. I really fancied putting my own stamp on the place, so asked if he’d sell it finished as a shell with the staircases installed, but then leave the kitchen, bathroom and a few other bits and pieces to me. He was happy to do this and if the price was right we’d have a deal.

I did what I usually do when buying property, I had a figure in mind that I’d happily buy it for, so low balled him with a lower offer to chance my arm and see what he said. Usually you get a ‘no way’ but at least you’ve started negotiating. I offered him £160k for it, thinking that we’d do a deal at between £180k-£190k and that in all likelihood I’d spend another £30k on getting it to how I wanted it.

He was however so offended at my first offer that he flatly refused to negotiate with me and told me he changed his mind and didn’t want to sell it to me! He really got the hump and wouldn’t back down. I told him to think about whether he did want to sell it me and a week later he rang me to tell me that he definitely did not.

I was pretty disappointed for a few weeks and then as is life, forgot about it. The next time I was down there I stopped and had a look at the building and thought nothing of it and that was that.

So why am I recanted this story now? Well I got chatting to this couple and regaled my story and once I’d finished asked them how the development was now, some five years later. They said that although the six or seven apartments had been finished, no work had been done on the other buildings and they had really fallen into disrepair. It seems the guy has run out of money to finish the project in a timely manner.

With hindsight I had a lucky escape. Without a doubt that apartment would have been totally unique, with nothing like it anywhere else in the country, but it looked out from 75% of the windows onto the old derelict buildings and after five years that would have been annoying, disappointing and quite a sad reflection on the demise of a once great building.

Oh well, I did enjoy my brief few hours in an asylum. maybe I had a lucky escape in more ways than one?

Pictures courtesy of http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/index.php