THIS delightful barn conversion near Hexham offers a fantastic opportunity for someone to run a five-star bed and breakfast business.

But if that's too much like hard work, then you could just enjoy a lovely family home in an idyllic position.

Fairshaw Rigg in Lowgate has been run as a B&B by Paul and Kathryn Shrimpton for the past seven years. Alongside the B&B, which regularly features on TripAdvisor with flattering reviews from guests, the couple farm alpacas and have a knitwear business.

They have brought up children Jack, Hannah and Will there, with only Will, a student at Queen Elizabeth High School, still at home.

Paul said: "We moved here 21 years ago. We were supposed to be renting for five months – I had been promoted to a new financial services role in Newcastle.

"We ended up renting for three years then bought it in 1999. It has been a family home for all of the time but six years ago we converted part of it to the bed and breakfast area..

"It could still be a bed and breakfast or just the family home that it has always been – there is plenty of accommodation here whichever way people want to do it. If someone wanted to run it as a B&B it’s ready-made and features very highly in TripAdvisor, etc. It’s a very profitable business.

"Equally, the size and layout would facilitate a family home and granny annex. And as the property is all on the ground floor, bar one room, it would suit someone with accessibility requirements."

Since the original barn conversion was done in the mid-1990s, the Shrimptons have added an orangery where they serve breakfast to their guests. They also converted the garage to a games room and built a feeder barn which they use as a garage. The house now includes two reception rooms, farmhouse kitchen, utility, five bedrooms, five bathrooms and a study.

Paul said: "After buying in 1999, we extended in 2001 and started the B&B in 2010 so there was quite a long period when it was still very much our family home.

"Then we decided I would give up the rat race. Jack was at university and we didn’t need quite so much accommodation for the family so we converted what was four bedrooms and two bathrooms into three en-suite bedrooms.

"Hadrian’s Wall is obviously the big attraction for visitors but we get people coming for weddings at Langley Castle and the Winter Gardens, and business travellers. We’re five-star accredited by Visit England.

"Our reason for moving is that we want to expand our real passion which is the breeding of the alpacas and we need more room for them. We’ve bought land in Lowgate village and have built a barn for the animals.

"We have 16 alpacas pregnant so that’s 32 animals – they typically only give birth to one animal at a time. At the moment we just don’t have the land here to be able to supervise them all closely enough.

"We have an acre and a half of paddock which can be used for a pony or we have some pet alpacas for sale who would happily stay here. If a buyer had no use for the land we would be glad to rent it from them to accommodate some of our herd.

"We’ll really miss the house, Kathryn particularly, I think. She is from an RAF background and not used to living anywhere for very long and in our early married life we moved four times in eight or nine years.

"Having lived here for 21 years, it will be a massive wrench for her. We’ve absolutely fallen in love with Northumberland."

Fairshaw Rigg, Lowgate, Hexham, which has no forward chain, is for sale at £650,000 from Red Hot Property, tel. 01434 601800.