Guy, 33, great-grandson of Alfred Dunhill, founder of the tobacco and pipe company, and his 30-year-old Irish wife bought their house three years ago. The previous occupant had been squatting there with his family for 15 years.

There were holes in the roof, the windows were rotting and covered with plastic sheeting, the lovely old terracotta floors were warped and dangerous and the ground floor was still the old animal stalla.

"It took months to clear the place out," says Kerry, recalling the rats' and scorpions' nests, layers of animal dung and years of household rubbish that included bits of at least two old cars.

There were some nice surprises - when they cleared away the 6ft-high brambles in the garden, for example, they uncovered a small lake that they hadn't known was there, as well as two Etruscan tombs.