IT WAS quite a nostalgic return. Many years ago, when our children were small, we lived in Hopgrove Lane North, York.

It was a splendid place to raise a family. Then, as today, it was a quiet cul-de-sac off Malton Road, a private lane where a mix of bungalows, cottages and detached houses spilled their way gently along the lane, each with green and gold rural outlooks back and front.

“That’s the thing I will really miss,” Sharon Pickup says, “the location is fantastic. You feel you are in the countryside and it is nice and peaceful – but you are just two minutes from the A64, the same from the Monks Cross shopping park and you can be in the centre of York in no time.”

Sharon lives half way down the road, in a handsome, double-fronted detached house. A house, it turns out, that is full of surprises.

Our own home of all those years ago was a pretty place but it was, looking back, more cottage than house. Plenty of character but, well, a little on the small side, space wise.

That could not be said of Sharon’s place.

The first of my surprises on arrival is to discover that this is a deceptively large property with lots and lots of bright, light open spaces.

The first of which is a wonderful open plan combined kitchen, dining and sitting room, organised in a neat, elongated L-shape.

To the front there is a smartly fitted kitchen area with a range of high gloss wall and base units, a built-in electric oven and hob, complemented by smart wood work surfaces and with a breakfast bar separating it from the dining area.

This kitchen has a set of French doors opening to the front (the first of many such doors we are to discover on our tour).

Indeed there are two further French door pairings in the dining area, each opening on to a terrace which is the start of the substantial gardens beyond.

“It’s lovely in the summer,” Sharon says, “when you can just throw the doors open and you can sit out with a glass of wine… or two!”

It’s certainly not a hard scene to imagine – although when Sharon first moved in nine years ago imagining was all she could do… “It was a totally different house then,” she says. “There was a hallway running through and small rooms off that. It was very closed in and very dark. I had it all reconfigured.”

That meant bringing down walls, opening rooms up and extending at the back to make the most of the light and space that came with those changes.

The result was, as Sharon points out, a fantastic entertaining space that lets the outside inside.

And quite an outside it is, too, with a long garden sprawling itself through a collection of lawned and gravelled areas with flower beds and shrubs and bushes for shelter and mature trees providing natural privacy and for those who like the Good Life there is a decent-sized vegetable patch.

And there are also plenty of seating areas including a raised, timber decked patio.

“I put in lots of seating areas because this is a garden that gets the sun in some part of it all of the day and I wanted to make the most of that,” Sharon says.

Making the most of light and space is something that Sharon carried through to the house itself, too, along with an admirable sense of style.

The living room, for instance, situated on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen, is a super spot, a clever mix of high ceiling and decorative coving overhead and lots of (Karndean-covered) floor space underfoot with alcoves and shelving providing extra character while being warmed by a living-flame effect gas fire in smart, contemporary surround.

The result is a room that feels “snug-like” cosy and yet has a great sense of height and space and roominess (aided again by the fact you have great views across the fields to the front).

That sense of space is carried on upstairs where there are four bedrooms – all of them good-sized doubles – and a house bathroom.

The master bedroom, has a swish en-suite bathroom with roll top bath and separate walk-in shower cubicle while, as with the lounge, all of the bedrooms also all have open rural views (through newly replaced double glazed windows letting in the light and keeping out the cold).

Little wonder that Sharon loves this house and its superb location.

So why move?

Ah well, here comes the next surprise… Back downstairs in the kitchen area Sharon opens one of the floor to ceiling cupboard doors and, like Alice, we find ourselves tumbling into another world.

This wonderland is in the shape of an extension-cum-conversion of former outbuildings – providing a completely self-contained “second home”.

There is a pleasant lounge to the front, with French doors, which flows easily into an attractively fitted kitchen area with solid wood work surfaces over base units and then, easing along past a bathroom and separate WC, down to a large bedroom with fitted wardrobes and a door to a conservatory overlooking – and with doors to – the garden.

“We had this done so my mum could come and live with me,” Sharon says. “It meant that while we could be together mum also had very much her own home, as it were, being completely self-contained.”

It’s proved a good arrangement over the years but now things are about to change. Sharon’s mum, Marilyn, is planning to emigrate to sunnier climes. “The house, with the annexe, will just be too big for me,” Sharon says, “I am looking to downsize.”

With a deal of reluctance, we suspect, as Sharon and her mum have been happy here… with both house and location. But then life brings change.

As I walk back up the road, taking a sneak peek at our old house, there is another moment of nostalgia, a fond remembrance of that sense of rural life on the urban edge, of birdsong at dawn and dusk, of lazy summer days and evenings in the garden.

And a smile at the knowledge that a super house is waiting for someone new to move into the lane…

At a glance...

10 Hopgrove Lane North

Receptions rooms: 2 Bedrooms: 4.

Bathrooms: 2.
The annexe has living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and conservatory Gardens: Good hard-standing parking area to front with large, attractive garden to therear.

Wow factor: Fantastic dining kitchen with French doors opening to a garden terrace (ideal for entertaining).

Price: Offers in excess of £400,000.

Contact: Churchills. Tel: 01904 646622.