Off-grid couple who moved from historic Yorkshire farmhouse to remote mountains in Spain claim their lifestyle protects them from natural disasters such as flooding or storms

Adam Gough and Moira Domican-Gough bought the historic farmhouse Crina Bottom in 2021 and due to its remote location, they were inspired to live off the grid.

They lived in the rural Derbyshire village of Eyam before they moved to Yorkshire where Adam worked for a printing company and commuted down south every week.

The off-grid lifestyle means that you are not connected to public utilities, such as water, electricity, or gas. Adam and Moira rely on their own energy sources such as the sun and wind to generate power.

“We love the outdoors, we love hiking, climbing and we saw [the house] and absolutely fell in love with it,” Mrs Dominican-Gough said.

“All the things that scared everybody else off it were the things that we loved about it; we loved the nature of its remoteness, the fact that it needed renovating, we could make our own mark on it and we never lived off grid, so we were fascinated to have a go.

“You find a solution for everything. Years ago, people didn't have all of these conveniences and they lived, and they managed. So it's just about re-adjusting your mindset, really.”

After three years of living in the 17th century farmhouse, Adam and Moira were offered an opportunity to start a business in the mountains above Malaga, Spain.

Having lived off the grid for years, they have encountered numerous benefits of the lifestyle including the protection from natural disasters.

“When we were in our first year at Crina Bottom there was a massive storm and the electricity for the village was out,” Adam said.

“Whereas with the wind turbine and it being windy we had plenty of power when the village was cut off for a day in December.

“I think that being off grid we are in control of our own destiny. For most people if the water or electricity stops they have to wait for someone to fix the supply whereas we are in control of our supplies so manage them accordingly.

“We also have multiple sources of supply, out here we have our own well, can have water delivered and there are public water taps in the local villages.

“We also have a wood burning stove, portable gas heaters, electric oven, gas hob, electric heaters and a generator so if one fails we will still be able to use another.

“Once we have solar as well we will have mains, solar and battery supply; the solar is much more reliable as there is much more solar radiation about here and most days are sunny.”

They bought a property in Spain with 46,000 sq m of land and two houses and plan to convert a double garage into an apartment and also set up a couple of yurts and shepherd huts.

The houses have their own well and they are currently only connected to the electric grid before they add solar and batteries to be back off the grid.

They have been affected by the recent floods in Velentia.

“The floods have washed some of the track to the houses,” Adam said.

“It's 500m long, which we had to repair by hand as no vehicles could get in to us. We could not get out as the roads were badly damaged but fixed up enough to get out after 5 days.

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“It will delay the project as we cannot get bigger supplies in. We are currently under another red alert for flooding until tomorrow as it’s raining heavily again.”

Their unique lifestyle caught the attention of Daisybeck Studios and they were featured in an episode of the Channel 5 series Our Great Yorkshire Life earlier this year.

During filming they met 108-year-old Margaret whose family used to live in Crina Bottom for hundreds of years.

“They're really nice people and we thought, why not? [It will be] quite a fun thing to do,” Moira said.

“They were really nice people, they made it fun and they made it very relaxing, because obviously it's quite daunting if you've not been on television before.

“There was a lady called Margaret, at the time of recording she was 105 years old and was just about to turn 106.

“Well, I got in touch with her daughter in law, she is still with us. She’s still living in her own home, she has carers with her because she’s a bit frail now, but she’s still going strong.

“It was lovely [to meet her], she’s basically living history. She’s lived through two World Wars, she’s lived through two pandemics.

“She’s an incredible lady; she’s a tiny woman but very strong, very determined and a real character.

“It was lovely to meet her and to hear about how her mother would have lived there, and how she would have cooked on the fireplace that we had in our living room, way before the conveniences that we have.

“She got quite emotional thinking about how her mother would have walked through the house and what it was like for her, her mum used to have to walk a couple of miles to school down the lane every day and she got quite nostalgic about that.”

Moira said that living off the grid has many advantages.

“We were inspired by just generally living in modern day society, how much we take everything for granted and how wasteful we are,” she said.

“Living off grid stops that wastefulness and it's a real eye-opener, actually.

“The positives are that you're much more in touch with nature and the environment, the ability to live wherever you want, not being reliant on the grid and everybody else.

“You're self-reliant, which is a very empowering feeling.”