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Jane and Owain Griffiths made plans for a new life but then found everything they wanted right on their doorstep

With its vast expanses of countryside and coastline, it's hard to imagine why anyone on the Gower peninsula would go looking for those things elsewhere, but it is something that Jane and Owain Griffiths contemplated. We were going to move to Pembrokeshire but the house we were buying fell through,' says Jane. At the time, we were living just up the road from here. We had a lovely house in a popular village, but it all felt very suburban and sensible, and we were after something more rural.' The couple wanted a home that had space for friends and family to come and stay, and that could also provide an income. Having been brought up in a sprawling period property, I couldn't imagine myself not ending up in a rambling old home,' Jane laughs.

This house is in the village next to where they were living and had been on the market for a while. It was very familiar to Jane as she had been at school with the previous owner's son and used to help look after the family's pony. It struck a chord with us as it was such a beautiful old house in need of a bit of love,' she says. It had last changed hands back in the 1970s and a lot of time and money was spent on it at that time, but it had seemingly become more difficult to maintain as the years went by.