My family and I moved into Greenacre on 1st April, 2021. At the time I was 7 years old and my parents wanted a house as a “project”, to restore and make it into the family home. It was definitely a project! Whilst my parents were moving boxes and unpacking, my younger sister and I were with our Grannie and Grandad (so we wouldn’t get in the way). I cannot imagine the chaos though, because when we arrived back at our new home, boxes and items were still all over the place and everything was covered in layers of dust and spider webs. At first I thought it would be boring living in an old house, creaky, dusty and just, well, old. But I soon learnt to love and appreciate Greenacre as the beautiful building it truly is.
As we started to settle in, the builders started work. But there was one problem. Because Greenacre is a grade two listed building, we had to ask permission from the local council to carry out any building work. Thankfully, all of our requests were approved after visits from various Council authorities and piles of paperwork completed. We set to work on the old features of the house, sometimes rebuilding but other times just fixing. We refurbished and replaced most of the windows due to damage and some of them were modern and looked very strange on a Georgian house.
We had many builders day and night, some brilliant but some not so…
Finally, after several years, it was more or less finished. Even now we have the occasional problem or my parents find something else to fix but the constant work in the house has stopped – for now! But we mustn’t forget about the gardens. We cut trees down, mended our slanted wall, replanted trees and grew many delicious fruits and vegetables. We fixed and painted the gate at the back of the garden, created a new barbeque area for summer evenings and my sister and I made use of one of the rotten trees that was cut down by using the logs to create seats for our den in the laurel bush.
That left only one more thing to do. The attic. It was practically falling apart but after lots of hard work from the whole family, it has become a spare bedroom and an office. We all adore our new family home and love living in the little village of Shillingford!
Jemima Stone
September 2025