She said: "We have a map from 1672 showing the house and the council's former conservation officer Peter Messenger told us that he’d seen in records 1604 with 1697 being the date that it was first renovated.

"Plus there are two sandstone fireplaces in the house and they’re distinctly different in design with the more ornate one totally in keeping with the 1697 date. Peter said the other fireplace will relate to the 1604 date."

The listed farmhouse, at Raughton Head Hill near Dalston, has other original features such as beamed ceilings, mullioned windows and sandstone steps.

Andrea lives there with her husband and their 18-year-old son. Two other sons and a daughter have now left home. The couple bought Old Farm House because they were looking for a barn to convert and it fitted the bill.

She said: "This was on the market and frankly it wasn’t good enough to be called derelict. It had four walls standing - the old farmhouse with a barn attached - but it was a complete wreck.

"We bought it in October 1998, started the work in January 1999 and moved in that December but only into the draft version of the house, as it were. It was only four years later that the house was recognisable as it is now."

The renovation work is now complete with the most recent addition being a fantastic 39ft kitchen extension built four years ago. The end result is a magnificent family home offering bags of space.

The adults occupy the ground floor which has a dining room, sitting room, bathroom and master bedroom suite while the children had the run of upstairs where there are three bedrooms, a lounge with cinema system, study area and shower room. All the reception rooms and bedrooms are large with beamed ceilings

Andrea, a manager at Tesco, said: "The upstairs sitting room has always been the room that the kids have used. If they had friends round they could leave the oldies sitting on their own downstairs and play their computer games in their own bit upstairs.

"Downstairs there is a nice flow to the dining room, kitchen and sitting room which is my favourite room. It's very warm and cosy and even though three of the kids have left home I still gravitate towards it."

There has been as much work done on the gardens as the house. Andrea said: "When we moved in there were enormous farm buildings on the site with 4ft-thick concrete floors and buildings that were about 25ft high, it was a professional demolition job.

"One of the first things we did was put 300 tonnes of topsoil down, literally, that’s how bad the garden was. It was all hardstanding and rubble. Now there's a courtyard at the front and gardens at the back."

She says the big attraction of the house is its setting, close to Dalston and 15 minutes' drive from Carlisle, yet with a feeling of isolation.

"When you’re sat outside, it’s so quiet, everybody who comes here always seems to say the same. We can see the Scottish fells but I always describe the setting as parkland.

"The neighbour said when they first came they felt they were living on an estate and that’s the feeling it gives. It’s beautiful."