Reclaim the abandoned village of a man who emigrated from southern Italy to Scotland on foot 180 years ago. It’s the dream of a British lawyer of Italian origin who bought the 15 houses that made up his great-grandfather’s village to rebuild so his family could live there. It’s one of the stories the Our Own Town team is working on for its second season. This is an original show on UK Channel 4, as several English families leave the comfort of their homes to save towns and villages across Europe, including three in Spain. Cosmo airs the format Monday through Thursday at 9:00 p.m., also available on-demand from major payment providers.
The program is the very definition of capitalism: people who buy what used to be small-town-style homes to make a profit and rent those homes to foreigners looking for a break from their stressful city lives. But his producer Piero Sfreddo says in an interview via video call: “If the choice is between repeating or letting die, I prefer the former.” The creator assures that there is always a risk that these cities will lose their essence and their history, but “if they disappear, centuries of memory of the people who lived in them will be lost.”
The key for Sfreddo is to stay true to the place it once was, but in a sustainable way. “Agriculture, the kind of economy that these villages have been given, is dead, you have to think outside the box to make them survive,” he explains. In this way, the new owners give them “a new purpose”.
Detail of the welcome sign to the Ward.Cosmo Caverns
Each episode of Our Own Town tells the story of two buyers and the towns they acquired. Most flee the UK’s high prices in search of stunning scenery and a quieter lifestyle. In the case of Julie and Steve Ward, life took a turn for them, taking them from Norwich to Andalusia. Both closed their businesses and sold their house to travel around Europe with a caravan. Just when they were about to settle down indefinitely on a campsite in France, they fell in love with some caves in Granada. They contacted the owners via Facebook and after much negotiation they signed the deeds. This is how they went from “semi-retirement” to starting over with Cuevas de la Paz.
The history of their caves is no different from that of many others abandoned in the rest of the peninsula. Shepherds used these holes to shelter their livestock and over time they even became their homes. Now this couple is welcoming tourists, mostly Spaniards, looking for a place to unwind, albeit with a Wi-Fi connection that dropped during the interview. “Spain is beautiful, the weather is fabulous, the people are really nice,” says Julie. There are still caves for sale near you, ranging in price from 12,000 to 330,000 euros.
The program is accompanied by an epic tone, even in the music that guides it, creating moments of tension where, instead of removing dry branches from a barn or cobwebs from a lamp, its participants seem to be going to war. . However, this does not mean that the task of revitalizing a city is easy. The poor condition of the buildings ranges from problems with roofs and facades to the demolition of entire houses due to structural damage. The Wards found caves completely deserted, with leaking ceilings, damp walls, leaking pools, and no electrical wiring. “In the caves they had used a product called paraffin, which is like a wax that prevents moisture. The problem is that it breaks when it gets wet, so we had to vacuum the walls to get rid of any debris,” explains Steve.
Neil Christie in one of the houses he bought in the small town in the municipality of Taramundi (Asturias).Cosmo
Two other Britons have joined the adventure of the program in Spain, who want to regain the life of two cities in Asturias and Galicia. Marcial Doporto, settled in a village in Lugo, has the help of Benita and Senín, the last inhabitants of the town, to reconstruct the history of O’Penso. Doporto meets Mark Adkinson, another Brit who, after 40 years in Galicia, decided to start a real estate agency with his wife, specializing in pazos and abandoned villages. O’Penso sold for €225,000, less than Doporto would pay for a studio in London, he says. Neil Christie has spent nearly two decades repairing a town in Taramundi Council in Arruñada. In 2005, the Englishman bought the city for 45,000 euros and renovated it himself. His possessions include: eight stone houses, a small forest, a creek and just over seven acres of land.
The new owners become the envy of onlookers who once dreamed of having a city at their disposal. And it shows that waking up surrounded by amazing scenery and a life worthy of a story can, in many cases, be achieved for less than the cost of buying an apartment or car.
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