The Old Sawmill has a lovely combination of modern design and traditional features with a light and airy interior and a beautiful garden, a combination that was the deciding factor for Dr Peter Ross and his wife Mary when they first saw it nearly 30 years ago.

"We were working near Melton Mowbray and both took early retirement," Peter says. "As three of our parents were still alive and living in the Carlisle area, we decided to move back here, at a time when houses appeared on the market and were snapped up.

"This house was designed by the Cockermouth architect Tony Green. We were looking around the area and drove past the end of the road. The friend who was showing us around said, 'Tony Green has a place here. Let's go and look at it.'

"Mr Green was living in the house at the time and was walking down the road with his partner Alison so he took us in.

"That was Saturday afternoon, the first day it had been on the market, and we were the sixth couple to look at it. We loved the openness of it and the light.

"Tony Green was very proud of the light in this house even though it is up against Mill House next door, which dates from 1647.

"He has designed it with no windows on that side, they are all in the roof, so it is a very light and spacious house which was the other thing we liked about it and it had a nice big garden, about a third of an acre."

The bungalow was built on the footprint of the old sawmill, hence its name, and is very spacious as Peter says. It has a large living area with mezzanine, a dining area, kitchen and utility. Of the three bedrooms, one of the two doubles has an en-suite four-piece bathroom and the other has a door to the conservatory.

Peter adds: "Tony Green was living here for eight years before we bought it. He left us all his architect drawings and we put in a spiral staircase to the mezzanine above the living room.

"We also put the conservatory on and replaced quite a lot of the windows with expensive Everest windows.

"There is an open Swedish fire which Tony was very fond of but we haven't used it for years and have an electric fire instead.

"The old sawmill was demolished and this house built and the water wheel is still there between the two properties - it deserves to be preserved.

"A roofer working next door told us that the roof slates here are from the original sawmill and are hand-cut Honister slate. They would cost £30,000 to £40,000 to put in nowadays."

The fantastic living space within the Old Sawmill is complemented by the beautiful gardens which have a shed, pond and decked area with hot tub. Across the lane is a vegetable garden.

"We get red squirrels and an awful lot of birds in the garden, woodpeckers, blackbirds and thrushes," Peter says. "We were sitting in the garden the other day and watching a red squirrel not 10ft away demolishing the bird food. We've also had tawny owls nesting in my owl box.

"Tony's partner Alison had done an awful amount of tree planting and those trees are all now mature. This is a country garden and we've put a lot of work into it - planted a lot of Japanese maples, for instance. And we have the vegetable garden on the other side of the Wisenholme Beck.

"However, I can't really manage the garden any more which is one of the reasons we want to move. It needs someone with more energy.

"And we want to be nearer to Carlisle for a hospital and the railway and motorway but the Old Sawmill really is a lovely and unusual house."

The Old Sawmill, Lamplugh, is for sale at £300,000 from Cumbrian Properties. Find out more here .