A shack built 75 years ago by two young brothers using only the knowledge from their school woodwork lessons has gone on sale for £30,000.
It has no running water, no piped gas or electricity and no drains – but the sale does include cutlery.
The amateur structure was built by John Richardson, 11, and his 16-year-old brother Bill over the space of two school holidays in 1934 and 1935.
‘We used an engineer’s hammer, two antique planes and a couple of old chisels,’ said John, now 86.
They eventually sold it in 1986 for about £1,500 to friends who used it as a family holiday home but it is now being sold for 20 times that – and it has apparently sparked interest from five families.
The secluded shack in Appletreewick, North Yorkshire, ‘is absolute heaven but needs kids and noise to get the most out of it’, said seller Pam Atherton, 62.
Mr Richardson told how they built the shack in their grandfather’s garden in Leeds before his father ordered him to find a spot to put it.
‘My father sent me to knock on the door of a farmhouse, telling me, “It’s your hut, now you find a home for it”,’ he said.
A friendly farmer let them put it up and charged them £4 a year in rent.
The Athertons now pay the landowner £750 a year and Craven District Council £248 in nondomestic rates.
