'Hobbit house' in Welsh hillside

Fed up with high mortgage prices in the countryside, a man decided to build his very own eco-friendly hobbit house in a woodland.

Simon Dale, a freelance photographer, spent only £3,000 on the hillside home in Wales, and built it in less than four months, using little more than a chainsaw, a hammer and a one-inch chisel.

The home - which resembles those occupied by hobbits in JRR Tolkien's much-loved books The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - is designed to be ecologically sustainable; heat is generated by a wood-burner and electricity comes from solar panels on the roof. Water is collected from a nearby spring and there’s a compost toilet.

Simon lives in the house with his writer and gardener wife and two children, and insists that building an eco-home from scratch is a doddle: "This kind of building is accessible to anyone. My main relevant skills were being able bodied, having self belief and perseverance and a mate or two to give a lift now and again."