EAUTY, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. When, in the early 2000s, Gill Farm at Gilling East in the Howardian Hills AONB, two miles south of Oswaldkirk and 15 miles north of York, came up for sale, it failed to resonate with local buyers, who saw merely a ramshackle stone farmhouse and crumbling buildings surrounded by 60-odd acres of decaying woodland. Only developer Julian Pilling, who grew up in the area, saw the potential of the peaceful hidden valley that has no public rights of way. There, over a period of seven years from 2015, he created the magical Valley Farm estate that is now on
