The life-changing things people bought for £1: ‘Some find the idea of getting a castle ridiculous’

theguardian.com:

Martin Higgins , 60, Brockham, Surrey

Where I grew up, in Brockham, everyone knew about Betchworth Castle. Every child, including me, trespassed there at least once. My parents even had a local map on our living room wall, so I couldn’t fail to notice the ruins of this early medieval castle in parkland. My mother was a keen local historian and my father was a civil service landscape architect, so we had a free pass to Historic England sites. Holidays were one ruined abbey after another.

I gained an architecture degree at university, then a master’s in historic timber-frame buildings. I worked for the National Trust, then as a local authority conservation officer in London and a historic buildings officer in Surrey. Although one of the jobs during those 20 years was to help preserve buildings, I never encountered Betchworth professionally.

The castle, possibly an iron age hill fort, had featured in the Domesday Book and includes bronze age features. King Edward I once stayed there, but it had been reduced to a “romantic ruin” by the aristocratic Hope family. Its history is fascinating. After the district council acquired it in 1955 –, they tried to pull it down. By this time, a golf course was laid out around it. But the government blocked the demolition, railings went up and, periodically, enthusiasts like my mum would plead with the council to do more. I tried to buy it several times, but got nowhere. In 2008, I decided it wasn’t good enough: I secured a meeting with the council and, when it became clear they couldn’t afford to do anything to preserve it, I said: “I’ll tell you what, I’ll buy it from you for £1 and do it myself.” They agreed instantly.

The building was in conservation deficit – meaning the repair cost was