River views don’t get much better than this. The Tay drifts by on the other side of the road from 11 Douglas Terrace. Across the two-mile wide mouth of the river are the white cottages of Tayport and the trees and sands of Tentsmuir Forest.
Hamish Ramsay bounds to the door and shakes my hand. He’s lived in the waterfront townhouse for a long time – though he says he never tires of the view.
“My parents moved here in 1954 when I was a boy,” he explains. “My father passed away when I was 14 and when Dot and I got married we bought the house from my mum. It was a bit scary at the time, especially because interest rates then spiralled to 15%, but we got through it.”
The traditional four-bedroom stone townhouse was built in the 1870s, with a rear extension being added around 50 years later.
There is no shortage of original features, from cornices to a striking cupula that floods the upstairs landing with light. One of the most charming is the hidden corridor that stretches the full length of the ground floor.
Hamish continues: “This would once have been the staff corridor – they would use it to move between rooms unobtrusively and serve food and drink to the owners
“These store rooms would probably have been staff bedrooms. We now use them for storing some of our sailing equipment. How times have changed!”
The spacious living room has a large bay window to take in the vista outside. The dining room has a glazed door to the back garden.
Hamish, who was the managing director of Dundee firm Oastler Joinery before he retired, renewed the large kitchen around a decade ago.
A utility room and a WC complete the downstairs accommodation.
The stair splits partway up, with one side leading to a double bedroom overlooking the back garden.
Two of the other three bedrooms look over the river, and the master bedroom could easily be used as an upstairs lounge.
Both front-facing bedrooms have window seats to gaze over the river from.
There’s a family shower room and a large cupboard that could be turned into a second upstairs bathroom.
The back garden has a large stretch of lawn and a drying area. At the front, there’s off street parking and a small patio outside the front door to enjoy sunshine and views in the summer months.
Hamish, 66, and Dot, 64, are down-sizing now their children are grown up. “We spend a lot of the summer away sailing so we don’t need all this space,” Dot explains.
They may be selling but they have no intention of giving up their river views.
“We’re moving to a top floor apartment on Perth Road,” Hamish says. “So we’ll just have a great view over the Tay, just from a bit further along.”
11 Douglas Terrace, Broughty Ferry, is on sale with Thorntons for o/o £485,000.