A three-storey home in a large, A-listed building in the heart of Perth has been a labour of love for its owner. With a garden that backs onto Perth Museum it could not be more conveniently located in the Fair City.
Angela Ramseyer pauses in her spiel about renovating Ashton Townhouse and exclaims: “Listen to that!”
I hear very faint traffic noises and the cheerful twittering of birds from the rear garden. “Would you believe we’re in the middle of the city?” she asks.
She’s right. In spite of its library-quiet interior, Ashton Townhouse could not be more centrally located in Perth. Tucked away on Charlotte Place, it looks over the North Inch, Perth Concert Hall is at the end of the lane, and the city museum’s distinctive dome looms over the back garden.
A serial house renovator, Angela, 58, has taken houses and cottages from ruin to splendour all over north east of Scotland.
She bought Ashton Townhouse two years ago and set about bringing it back to its former glory. “It had been owned by an elderly lady and I don’t think she had lived there for the last few years,” she explains. “It was in a pretty bad state. We stripped a lot of it right back to the stonework and started from scratch.”
The house is accessed via a shared entrance from Charlotte Place. A hidden gem, the front door opens onto an entrance hallway that is lined with grand pillars. “These pillars are identical to the ones used across the road in Perth Museum,” Angela says. “We suspect both buildings were by the same architect.”
The drawing room sits at the front of the house, with two large windows overlooking Charlotte Place and the North Inch. Off the hallway is a WC that’s beautifully done in the style of a 1920s powder room.
Angela knocked down the wall dividing the kitchen and dining room, putting in a steel beam to support the ceiling. The resulting open plan kitchen/dining area is spacious and welcoming. It looks onto a shared rear garden that backs onto the rear wall of Perth Museum. “It’s supposedly shared but I’m the only one who ever uses it,” she smiles.
Downstairs there’s a large walk-in store room, an understairs cupboard, and a garden room that spans the width of the property and has its own door to the outside world. “With the right permission this could be a self-contained holiday flat,” Angela says. “It could also make a great studio or treatment room.”
On the uppermost floor is a family bathroom, double bedroom, and master bedroom with dressing room off.
Angela has poured her heart and soul into renovating Ashton House, sourcing chandeliers from France for the kitchen and removing bricked up openings to restore sash-and-case windows in ground floor and upstairs rooms.
“I never intended to sell this one,” Angela admits. “This was meant to be my forever home but circumstances change and I’m planning to move to America for a little while to be closer to my son, who works in Austin.”
Ashton Townhouse, Flat 1, 2 Charlotte Place, Perth is on sale with Savills for o/o £245,000.