About Us
Andy and Anna bought Monkton House after falling completely in love with it, and are only the seventh owners in more than five centuries. Between them they have family scattered across four continents and after helping to organise several wonderful family gatherings, they went in search of the perfect place to enable others to experience the same.
They have four children and two dogs and love spending time with family and friends, camping and eating good food.
Their dream is to make the house as eco-friendly as possible whilst keeping its unique character, and are planning exciting (to them) changes, beginning with boilers, solar panels, greenhouses and toilets.
Andy Paton
Andy was born in Glasgow, Scotland to Scottish parents and speaks English and French. His French is Scottish Standard Grade (fluent in his head) level so he is happy to talk to you about how old he is, where he lives and the yellow bicycle stuck in the tree but please don't actually speak to him in French or he will run away.
After working in financial services for 20 years Andy jumped (or was he pushed?) at the opportunity to try something new. He gladly swapped spreadsheets, monthly reporting and endless committees for completely different spreadsheets (accountants love a good spreadsheet!), planning applications, listed building consents, stonemasons, furniture building, making people's dreams come true and responding to happy customer reviews (hopefully!).
Andy enjoys running, swimming, furniture building, DIY and can normally be found with at least one child climbing on him. His love of DIY was born after being ripped off by consecutive tradespeople and deciding that he could easily do better. The only things holding him back from being competent are a complete lack of skills, zero patience and of course really bad tools. He does like a good challenge though and is definitely not one for giving up! Unless it's too difficult in which case he folds faster than Anna's arms if you suggest to her that wearing flip flops in winter for moving furniture is a bad idea or that she should pick up something non-vegan from the shops!
Anna Croukamp
Anna was born in Swakopmund, Namibia to a German mother and Zimbabwean father. She speaks English and German and is learning Scots Gaelic (very slowly).
She fell madly in love with Scotland after moving here in 1997, and loves exploring it every chance she gets. Because of her African beginnings, she does this mostly barefoot. Her excuse is that her GP diagnosed her feet with having culture shock after leaving Namibia, and to wear shoes as little as possible. When medical advice appeals to her as much as that, she is delighted to follow it, even 20 years later.
Her career has meandered over financial services, IT support, full-time motherhood and, most recently, magic wand making. She became the Boss Witch after planning a hugely labour-intensive but ultimately fabulous Harry Potter style birthday party for her ten-year-old daughter in 2016. She had so much fun making magic wands that she decided to take it up as a hobby and sell them online and at various craft fairs.
Anna is a member of various environmental activist organisations and is always looking for ways to become more eco-friendly and to challenge governments and large companies to do so too.
She's a herbivore and enjoys wood carving, crochet and tree hugging in her spare time.