pink house in Brabyns

[Barbara]

It does seem a shame for the house to go to rack and ruin, but I doubt if anyone would really like to live there, it is very isolated.  A study centre,or something similar, would seem to be the best use for it, but there is always the funding issue.  And the problem of vandalism is not going to go away in a hurry unfortunately.  We shall just have to see what happens when the auction takes place.

[Miss Marple]

I used to live at Rawlings Cottage in Brabyns park, sadly no longer there,but there are some lovely photos of it on the Marple Web sight.  I remember the Pink house used to have monkeys and one day they escaped and were swinging through the trees.  My mother was terrified it was like a scene from Jungle Book she ran home and bolted all the doors. Don't know how they managed to catch the monkey's, but it was the main topic of conversation in Compstall and the local mill where my mother worked for weeks.   At that time Brabyns Park was like a forest it was difficult to find your way through to Compstall due to the density of trees, so the monkeys must have had a great time swinging from tree to tree.   It would be lovely to see the house in use again, I have wonderful memories of sitting  on the river bank at the side of the house and playing in a home made raft sailing up and down the river   To turn this into a tea room or a visitor centre would be a wonderful thing to do

[admin]

It may interest people to know that the Iron Bridge Cottage is going up for auction on 9th July. See this link for more details. http://gascoigneweb.aspasia.net/pls/gascoign/rv?id=325018

Wouldn't it be nice if the council had the foresight to buy if to turn into a tea room / heritage centre type asset for the community!

[admin]

It's not been pink for a good while and it's next to the Iron Bridge in Brabyns, but we know what you mean!

This is mostly unconfirmed so if anyone knows better please let us know. At the time the Iron Bridge was reopened (June 2008) we understood that a sale was close to completion and plans to extend and restore had been submitted by the buyers. Conclusion of the sale appeared to drag on for a long time and we now understand that it fell through some time ago.

The cottage is therefore presumably still owned by the person who carried out the restoration and repairs over the past few years. A new (and unpopular) roof was fitted and a lot of work has been done inside. The chap did most of the work himself and was planning to move in when it was finished but he had huge problems with vandalism while it was empty. He fought against it but my guess is that this eventually killed the dream.

The best solution to the problem (in my view) would be for the council to buy it and turn it into tearooms / toilets / mini nature / heritage site but we tried to get them to do that during the Iron Bridge Project and they could not see the potential then and probably cannot see it now.

So it looks like it is just going to sit there and decay for the forseeable future, unless someone decides to take it on.

[paulpigram]

Anyone know what is happening to the (used to be Pink House) next to the Roman Bridge in Brabyns?
It is looking a bit tired!