“For the price of a three-bedroom flat in Norwich, we now have our own town.” The very smiling Julie and Steve Ward attend by Zoom from the sofa in their living room, in the center of the small semi-abandoned village that they bought a few years ago in Granada.
Behind them appears a huge white canopy bed, later they will explain that it was made with sleepers from old train tracks. There is also something that looks like a window. It seems, because it is only a fiction. Julie and Steve Ward live in a cave, their entire town is carved out of the mountain.
This couple from the east of England is just one of the participants in Our Own Town, an original Channel 4 format that has arrived in Spain this Monday from the hand of Cosmo and that is something like the definitive reform program: British who buy abandoned villages in southern Europe and renovate them, either for living or as tourist complexes.
Fate took the Wards directly to Los Carriones, a small town of less than 300 inhabitants in the Vega del Guardal that was once the home of shepherds. “We decided to take a gap year, we sold our house and set out in our caravan,” says Julie, “the initial idea was to stay in a French campsite, but we didn’t find one we liked and we continued south.”
We discover the coolness in summer, the heat in winter, deep sleep in complete silence and the exceptional of living in a cave
They were visiting friends not far from where they now reside when, by chance, they found out that a small village carved into the mountain was for sale, a place called Cuevas de la Paz, they couldn’t resist trying it out. “We discovered the coolness in summer, the heat in winter, deep sleep in complete silence and how exceptional it is to live in a cave,” they say, “we didn’t think of staying, but here we are.” What ended up conquering them was, paradoxically, that there were no more British for many kilometers around: “Nothing to do with the coast.”
The complex is made up of six caves, absolutely different from each other. In their day, the shepherds of the area used them as fodder stores and shelter for animals. Later, someone saw the recreational potential of the caves and installed kitchens to turn them into a kind of eating house. “He even dug more into the mountain to gain depth and installed exhaust fans, he spared no expense and did a very good job,” says Julie. It was from this owner that the Wards bought their town. They won’t say how much, just that they didn’t pay more than a three-bedroom house in Norwich would cost.
Las Cuevas de la Paz is currently a rural tourist complex with all the comforts. They even have already built the pool that starred in their sleeplessness during the recording of the program. That of the Wards is only one of the three stories of Our Own Town that take place in Spain. The first buyer of this peculiar program is Marcial Doporto, who took over O’Penso, a village in the province of Lugo for 225,000 euros. To get an idea of ??the possibilities, the program shows a map of the Galician province populated with yellow thumbtacks: “All these are abandoned towns.”
Neil Christie opted for Arruñada, an abandoned town in Asturias that he acquired for 45,000 euros and that he rehabilitates with his own hands, and upon his arrival he suffered that suspicion that As bestas portrayed well, of course without an iota of violence. Two decades later, he is one of the residents of the Taramundi council.
It is precious to meet people who help keep alive a piece of history of our continent that would otherwise be lost forever.
The inspiration to take the reform programs further and launch one of the purchase and rehabilitation of entire towns came to the producer Piero Sfreddo in the form of a call. Two professors from Bristol had bought a ruined town in Portugal and wanted to tell its story. “It seemed like a precious opportunity to talk about heritage recovery,” he recalls. When they took the idea to the British public channel, the response was: “If you find more stories like this, we’ll give you a series.” They are already filming the second season.
“We only talk about British buyers because it is a Channel 4 format, but for every Briton we find we get two, three, four Italians, Dutch, Spanish… They all buy towns and rehabilitate them, it’s something like a trend,” ensures.
An Italian living in the United Kingdom for many years, the case that has struck Sfreddo the most has been that of a Scotsman of Italian origin who decided to resurrect the ruined village of his great-great-grandfather, in a remote and mountainous place between Naples and Rome. “It’s precious to meet people who selflessly help to keep alive a piece of history of our continent that would otherwise be lost forever,” says Sfreddo, “the most curious thing is that the Scotsman’s last name is exactly the name of the town. Don’t tell me it’s not exciting.”
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