Case Study · Still in the Running
Saint-Sulpice-les-Champs: The £7k House with a Barn
The cheapest real house on the whole search — and it isn't a shed. A 115 m² Creuse house in proper dressed granite (pierre de taille), with an attached stone barn and bread oven, half the roof already redone, for about the price of a second-hand car, fees paid. The stonework is the draw and the ground is sound; the honest catches are the radon, the tight plot and the long drive south. Here's the full workup.
Saint-Sulpice-les-Champs, Creuse (23) · southern Creuse, 11 min from Ahun · ≈ 640 km / 6½ hrs from Calais · ≈ 580 km / 6.7 hrs from Bern
If La Cellette is the best all-rounder, this is the value floor: the lowest price on the board that still buys a proper house and a barn on sound ground. It's the clearest proof that the house-plus-barn dream is real in the Creuse — so it earns the full workup.
📸 See the photos: view the full Saint-Sulpice listing on Properstar → (opens in a new tab)
The free routine that passed Saint-Sulpice — run it on any place before you travel.
Run the checklist →🔑 Haggling a Long-Empty WreckFees are on the seller and it's the oldest kind of bargain — how to make a low offer stick.
Read the guide →📊 Every house, rankedSee exactly where this £7k one lands against the rest of the search.
See the rankings →The listing, in full
The agent (Rapinat Immobilier) offers a freestone house 30 minutes from Guéret and 11 from Ahun, to renovate completely. On the ground floor: a living room, a kitchen, a shower room and a WC. Upstairs: a large room. Above that, an attic. And, crucially, a barn attached to the house — with a bread oven. Part of the roof has been redone, the other half remains to be changed. The individual sanitation is not to standard and needs redoing. Agency fees are paid by the seller, and the property is not subject to the DPE.
- Price≈ €8,500 (≈ £7,299) — fees paid by the seller. The cheapest on the board.
- Rates (taxe foncière)Not stated — low for a small rural ruin; confirm with the agent
- LocationSaint-Sulpice-les-Champs (23480), southern Creuse — 11 min Ahun, 30 min Guéret
- Drive from Calais≈ 640 km / ~6½ hrs
- Drive from Bern≈ 580 km / 6.7 hrs
- House115 m² freestone — ground floor, a large first-floor room, and an attic
- RoomsLiving room, kitchen, shower room, WC downstairs; big room up; attic over
- Land421 m² garden — small (the one real limit)
- OutbuildingsBarn attached to the house, with a bread oven
- Build / materialsProper stone — freestone (pierre de taille) house + attached stone barn ✓✓ the best build on the board
- RoofHalf already redone — the other half still to change
- WaterNot stated — confirm with the agent
- ElectricityNot stated — confirm with the agent
- Drainage / sanitationSeptic present but not to standard — to redo (SPANC)
- HeatingNone usable — to install (plan a wood burner)
- Energy rating (DPE)Exempt — not subject to the DPE
- Detached?Reads as part of a hamlet group in the photos — house + attached barn, likely joined to a neighbour beyond the barn; confirm on a viewing
- AgentRapinat Immobilier (Eric Rapinat), Guéret
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The stonework — the reason to look past the drive
This is what lifts Saint-Sulpice above every other £7k listing: it isn't rubble-and-render, it's proper dressed granite. On the façade, look at the corners and the openings — the quoins (cornerstones) are big, squared, dressed blocks of Creuse granite, and every window and door is framed by monolithic granite jambs under a single-stone lintel. That's pierre de taille — hand-cut ashlar — the most expensive, longest-lasting masonry there is, and it's already bought and built. You could not put this façade up new today for ten times the asking price.
The attached barn is the honest counterpoint: rougher, older random-rubble granite, with a full-height timber cart door under a huge oak lintel and a hayloft opening above. That contrast — dressed ashlar on the house, rubble on the barn — is exactly right for a Creuse ferme, and it means the barn is farm-built and forgiving to convert.
Why solid granite is the right kind of wall
These are solid load-bearing walls, ~50–60 cm thick, no cavity — which is why the house has stood over 150 years and why the sound granite ground beneath it (no subsidence) matters so much: hard rock under hard stone. Renovate it right and it's effectively permanent.
⚠️ Repoint with lime, never cement
The one rule that protects stonework like this: point and render with lime, not cement. Cement traps moisture in a solid wall and, on granite, blows the faces off the stone in a few frosts. Budget lime mortar and breathable finishes — it's cheaper than the damage cement does, and it keeps the façade you're buying the place for.
⚠️ The line on the façade — get a mason to read it
There's a vertical line running down the front in the photos. On sound granite ground, solid stone rarely moves — so it's most likely an infilled former opening or an old, stable repair rather than live movement, but it's exactly the sort of thing to have a maçon read on a viewing. If it's a settled scar, it's nothing; if it's open and stepped, price the stitching. Either way, check it before you fall for the rest.
The good worth having
The cheapest house-plus-barn there is
About £7,300, fees paid, and you get a 115 m² freestone house — genuinely roomy for the money — with an attached barn and a bread oven. Nothing else on the board buys this much building on sound ground for this little.
Half the roof is already done
The single most expensive, most weather-critical job on a wreck is the roof — and half of it is already redone. That de-risks the biggest line in the budget and means the house is that much closer to watertight.
Sound ground
The free checks come back clean: clay is low/unmapped and there are no drought-subsidence declarations — just the nationwide 1999 and 1982 storms. This is the granite Creuse doing what it does: hard rock under an old stone house.
The bad what needs doing
A full renovation — plus the other half of the roof and the septic
It's a complete refurbishment: the remaining half of the roof, a new septic system to SPANC standard, and — since the listing doesn't confirm them — likely the water and electricity too, on top of the usual insulation, heating, floors and fit-out. Budget the shell first.
⚠️ Radon: high (class 3 of 3)
Granite means radon, and here it's the top band. It's a ventilate-and-check job — an aired under-floor void, a sealed ground floor, a test kit once you're in — but it has to be designed in and budgeted, not discovered later.
⚠️ These ground figures (flood, subsidence, radon) are official records for the commune — real, but commune-wide, not proof for this exact plot. Check it yourself: official Géorisques risk report (ERRIAL) → — enter the property address.
A small plot
At 421 m² the garden is the tightest of our top picks — fine for a house, a barn and a veg patch, but not the acre-with-woodland some of the others offer. If land is the point, this isn't the one; if a cheap sound house with a barn is, it's hard to beat.
DIY-er vs needs-a-builder the honest split
You can do the bulk yourself; the roof and the certified connections are where a trade comes in.
If you're hands-on — what you can do yourself
The strip-out, internal walls, insulation, floors, the second-fix plumbing, the kitchen and shower room, repointing and decorating, and fitting a wood burner (with a certified sweep). With half the roof done, a competent DIYer with a van and time can carry most of this — and the money stays close to materials.
Where you'll need a pro (or a builder)
• The other half of the roof — if the frame or covering is gone, that's a couvreur/charpentier: heavy and safety-critical.
• Drainage — the non-compliant septic must be replaced to SPANC approval by an approved installer.
• The connections — reinstating and certifying the electricity (Consuel) and confirming a potable water supply.
Little of it is grant-eligible for a DIYer, but the energy work you contract out may qualify — see state aid.
What you'll need to clear it the van
A van, and more than one run
A full strip-out of a 115 m² house plus a barn is real volume — old fittings, lath and plaster, and the rubble from the roof and septic work. A T5-style van does the household loads; the masonry and rubble want a bigger van or a trailer, and several trips to the tip.
Getting rid of the rubble — the local tip read this first
Run by Creuse Grand Sud
Saint-Sulpice-les-Champs is covered by the Communauté de communes Creuse Grand Sud déchèterie network — the nearest a short drive toward Ahun / Aubusson — with a bulky-item collection you register for at the mairie.
But — residents only, like the UK
A French déchèterie serves the local community's residents. You need a justificatif de domicile (a local bill in your name) and usually to register at the mairie or with a badge — a UK- or Swiss-plated van with no French address won't get you in, exactly as at a British tip. Until you've completed and have a local address, budget for a private skip (benne) for the first big clear-out.
The score
Held back only by the small plot and the radon; carried by an unbeatable price, a real barn and half a roof already done. It sits near the very top of the rankings — the best value on the board.
The verdict
Still watching — the value pick. For about £7,300 fees-paid you get a 115 m² house in real dressed granite, an attached barn with a bread oven, half a new roof and sound granite ground — the most house-and-barn, and the best stonework, for the least money anywhere on the search. Weigh three things: the radon (design around it), the tight 421 m² plot (fine for a home, short on land), and the drive — ~6.7 hrs from Bern, the one thing the price can't fix, so it's a place you commit to for the fabric, not the location. Next step is the exact address, an address-level ground check, and confirming the water and electricity before an offer.
How we judge every place
Same free routine, every time — it's what tells a £7k gem on sound ground from a £7k trap on clay.
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