a9z2 – Russ McLean

Today Monday 4th March 2024, the full article is within the pictures, as are the VIP links for our VIP readers. Enjoy…

Unique Property Bulletin

A Tale of Two Churches: Before & After

Today, Monday 4th March 2024, and we add the second part to the 2nd March 2024 feature. The previous Bulletin had Highland Parish Church for sale at just £99,995. Unique Property Bulletin was born at the Old Lookout Station on Davaar Island in 1987, some 3 7 years ago. Back then, we negotiated a bargain £5 (five pounds) per YEAR Lease to acquire the derelict Old Lookout building. Grand adventures plus this publication was born there. Ironic for today as Highland Parish Church is within line of sight of Davaar Island. So we are focussing a while on these unique properties.

There is deja vu right now, as 40 years ago in 1985, the person tapping away at this keyboard was employed in quite a different job (here). That was to protect people and property: to preserve the peace.

During the night-shift, your duties included walking around every shop and commercial/crucial building on your beat, to check each padlock. To make sure each door was locked. This matters as you might be shocked how many times someone forgets to lock their building. More than once a month, you’d gently push your upper arm against a door and fly into a building as the property was unlocked and insecure. It was a favourite thing where beats are adjoined and your nightshift police colleague would discover something unlocked before you and they would hide in the dark and spooky building. At 3am when you fall into an insecure property as an unlocked door yields, then you start checking it, hoping this is an innocent piece of forgetfulness at a shop rather than a criminal lurking with a swag-bag, you nearly evacuate your bowels when a work colleague jumps out at you from the dark shadows.

Some places were unlocked/unlockable as a matter of course. One was the big derelict/buildings site church at Castlehill (during 1985). It was closed and dilapidated. But had been bought be a property developer and was a favourite place to see transform into 9 flatted dwellings from an open shell of an empty structure. Especially the bitterly cold or wet periods between 11pm at night and 7am in the morning. You would have a brief 10 minute period to check that all was well. If the exigencies of work had caused a missed rest-period earlier, there was even time to have a coffee from your flask and understand a fascinating bare building site better. Those are unusual times. Almost everyone in town safely in their beds asleep and you get these magic moments outside. The rain stops. The Moon casts light off of the wet surfaces. These places can glow in a beautiful way.

So during a 12 month period, yours truly watched the Castlehill church transform from a defunct shell into 9 very nice, and now, much sought after homes.

I can compare that time to now and and the nearby Highland Parish Church which is, by any measure, a magnificent building. At £99,995 this is a fabulous base for a project to convert into nine warm and unique homes. In today’s money utilising Castlehill Church as “comparables” for a completed “turnkey” set of flats, Highland that would be 9 x £110,000 apartments is a handsome £990,000 exit and a way to keep this building alive.

This is an example of the purpose of this Bulletin: to see two similar buildings and to be able to visualise what the £99,995 Highland Parish church could look like. Curious? Here are some photographs of a building that in many ways is a twin. Over to you guys with compliments of Unique Property Bulletin…

Before Phots: (Highland Parish Church as it is now): https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/144275306#/

After (what Highland Parish Church COULD look like ~ one of nine flats): https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/pa28/castlehill.html