Despite considerable challenges along the way, Diana Bell and her husband Edward have managed to turn the Grade I listed Creake Abbey in Norfolk into a charming family home and thriving business, surrounded by beautiful water meadows just a few miles south of Burnham Market and the coast. It is while sitting in the sun-drenched new kitchen extension of her home, overlooking the walled garden – once a monastic cloister – that Diana says she has her “pinch me” moments.
Many less determined types might have walked away years ago from what proved to be the interminable obstacles that followed the purchase of the house and