Eight years ago, Jeff and Sashi Davies had a comfortable life with their two children in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. Their work was going well and they had a four-bedroom holiday home in the foothills of the Pyrenees, in southeastern France, near the Spanish border.

At the end of each holiday, though, it became harder to turn their backs on French Catalonia and return home. One day, they didn’t. “We thought, why should we?” says Sashi, 50, a mineralogist. “We wanted to make time for each other and for our children.”

They had fallen in love with one of the most inaccessible and beautiful spots in the Pyrenees, an hour’s drive into the mountains from the market town of Céret, famous for its cherries (it hosts an annual cherry-stone spitting competition) and for former resident Picasso, to whom the cafe on the square is dedicated. It was here that Jeff and Sashi, who had both just turned 40, contemplated a new life abroad.

Armed with plenty of ambition, lots of courage and very little French – only Sashi had even a basic knowledge of the language – the couple and their daughter, Lylah, then 10, and son, Zac, 12, set about restoring a ruined farmhouse, running a farm and setting up an Arabian stud.

“The riding here is perfect,” says Sashi, who took her own three horses with her. “The scenery is stunning and you can go for miles without touching tarmac.”

Their holiday house was in a good location – a hidden wooded valley with a Roman tower at its head and neolithic tombs nearby. But it was a little small and shabby, so the couple decided to look around for a bigger wreck to transform.

In 2003, they moved into their ideal ruin, or mas, as Catalan farmhouses are called: Can Tillet, formerly a sheep farm, with a six-bedroom main house, outbuildings and 1,100 acres of land (little of it level), the entrance to which is along a bone-shaking track 1½ miles from their letter box.

The building dates to the 17th century and records show a property on the site 1,000 years ago. The view south to the Mediterranean coast, to Collioure, made famous by Matisse’s paintings, is magnificent, and sunsets set the sky ablaze towards the holy mountain of Canigou, considered the spiritual home of the Catalan nation.

The family’s first winter was hard.

There was no glass in the window on the upper floors, the heating system devoured unmanageable barrowloads of wood and the roof turned out to be composed of crushed cardboard cartons, plastic rubbish bags and broken tiles. The floorboards had holes big enough for the Davies’s posse of cats to pop through at unexpected speed and the temperature in the bedrooms, Jeff recalls, was 1C.

Prices for period rural properties now start at about £400,000 – and any farmland is extra. “Then you need to allow another €1,000 [£835] per square metre for roof and structural repairs and modern conveniences,” Jeff says. Delivering material to the site, 1,000 metres above sea level, was costly and workmen were difficult to find.

After clocking up more than 60,000 miles in a Land Rover – mostly in double bends between the mas and the builders’ merchants, an hour and a half away, and on the school run to Perpignan, the regional capital – the couple have almost completed their house. They have spent about £165,000 restoring the property, which Sashi says is worth £830,000, but are still adding finishing touches.

Sashi is in charge of the stud, which has 23 horses. She also looks after their latest project, a huge two-bedroom, two-bathroom gîte, converted from a barn and an idyllic place for writing, painting or bird-watching.

The aim is to make the farm totally organic; they are on their way to getting accreditation, which takes three years in France. Although Jeff had worked on a farm in his school holidays, he had no experience of sheep, so he brought three border collies over from Wales to help run his flock of 250, and bought four cows to eat their way through overgrown land. A handful of goats have also joined the menagerie.

Not even the severe weather can dampen the family’s spirits or send them running back to Britain. “It is a joy,” Jeff says, “to be in the middle of nature, surrounded by animals, and for Zac and Lylah to be at liberty to do what they want. We feel the whole family is rooted in the place, proud of their savage mountain land.”

The gîte is available to let from €350 (£290) a week; 00 33 4 68 87 16 84, www.cantillet.com

Mas appeal: two Catalan crackers

This four-bedroom 18th-century villa is in Jardins St Jacques, a conservation area on the edge of Perpignan. It has three reception rooms, a swimming pool and sculpted gardens with a well. It is for sale for £886,000. Pierre Immo; 00 33 6 77 74 47 15, www.gp-immo.com

A pair of fully renovated houses in the town of Maureillas Las Illas, a five-minute drive from Céret, are on the market for £418,000. Linked by an internal courtyard, the properties each have three bedrooms. Agence Paradise; 00 33 4 68 55 00 92, www.collioureproperty.com

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