About us and Gardeners Cottage
It all started when...
We fell in love with Blakeney and North Norfolk
For us the world would be a better place, if everywhere had as much natural beauty and as much wildlife and was as dog friendly, and family friendly as Blakeney and the North Norfolk coast, and the gently rolling countryside around it.
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Photo of Blakeney Quay on North Norfolk Coast
We first discovered Blakeney on the North Norfolk coast about 21 years ago when our youngest was about 2 years old. We were living in Nottinghamshire at the time and had come on holiday camping to Kelling Heath. The weather was wonderful and we fell in love with Blakeney and the North Norfolk coast and from that holiday we were totally hooked.
Photo of two of our children enjoying the Norfolk Coast
We then spent most weekends and every school holiday in North Norfolk iniitially camping, then caravanning and eventually we managed to find a large holiday cottage, in the centre of Blakeney, in need of a major renovation.
On our first visit to view the cottage with the estate agent we both immediately fell in love with the beautiful quiet central location in Blakeney, and the sunny enclosed cottage garden, and could see the enormous potential in the cottage, despite the huge amount of work that was required. I think the estate agent thought we were both completely mad at the time, as the cottage required so much work.
About Gardeners Cottage
We fell in love with the beautiful enclosed sunny cottage garden and the fantastic location in the heart of Blakeney.
When we bought the house, it had had no work done on it for over 50 years and have never before come onto the open market. It had been owned by a couple, and then when they died had transferred to a family member who then left it in his will to a friend.
Initially we camped out in the house with out doing any major works for the first 4 years, with our three children, spending all our free time and school holidays there.
Hollyhocks grow everywhere in Blakeney
We did not do any major changes to the house initially other than minor cosmetic as we could not afford to. We got on top of the cottage garden and starting to seed it with hollyhocks and other native wildflowers that grew in Blakeney and started to plan what we would do with the cottage.
THE SUNNY COTTAGE GARDEN AND OUR LOVELY NEW RED ROOF
After about 4 years we had managed to save up enough money to put in planning permission to extend the house and convert the attics taking it from a three bedroom to a 5 bedroom house. We had always planned to let the cottage as a holiday let with the lovely people at The Blakeney Cottage Company, who are located just down the high street and so with this in mind we talked to them and then focussed on what would be important to our guests, and put in an enormous kitchen and plenty of bathrooms.
Gardeners Cottage Kitchen
We used a lovely local architect who lived in Blakeney and was in fact a neighbour. The planning permission took us several attempts and seemed to take forever, due to issues with surrounding trees, and at times we felt like giving up, but in the end we got there.
The renovation and rebuild took about 12 months. We used a local building firm based in Holt and a local project manager who was a friend of the architects. We were still living in Nottinghamshire and visiting the project at weekends. Amazingly, due to the dilligence of the amazing project manager and our wonderful builders, the whole project came in on budget and on time and we got the house back just in time for the children breaking up from school. We spent the whole summer holiday with the children at the cottage, and it was absolutely wonderful.
About us the owners
This is us-Mike and Kate
We have now lived in North Norfolk for the last 10 years and although our children have now grown up and gone off on their own adventures, our dog family has increased to 3, with the addition of a Weimaraner puppy in autumn 2019.
Our latest Weimaraner
Having spent the best part of 10 years travelling up and down the A17 to Norfolk from Nottinghamshire we took the plunge and moved to North Norfolk full time, and put Gardener's Cottage on to the holiday letting market, as we had always planned to.
We hope that you and your family and friends enjoy staying in Gardeners cottage, as much as we have done, and that you also fall in love with, and keep coming back to Blakeney and North Norfolk coast, as we have done. Who know you might even decide to move here like we did. It happens a lot.
Large family kitchen at the cottage
The cottage is very special, and we hope will be a forever house for us. We look forward to entertaining our children’s families and our grandchildren in the cottage one day, and introducing them to the delights of Blakeney and the North Norfolk coast, as we did with our own children.
Our Goal for Gardeners Cottage
Our aim for Gardener's Cottage has always been for it to be the best self catering large luxury dog friendly holiday cottage in Blakeney on North Norfolk coast.
We want our guests, their children and their pets to have a relaxing and comfortable stay with us, to make special memories that will stay with them a lifetime, and to fall in love with North Norfolk and to want to keep coming back year after year to Blakeney, as we have done.