This is the dreamy Portuguese home that a British family was forced to abandon mid-renovation, after locals branded them “English pigs” and allegedly killed their dog before threatening to come after them.
Footage shows the partially renovated house in the country’s Guarda municipality, with bags of packed belongings scattered throughout the house as the family planned to escape amid racist abuse from locals.
Lynn and Richard Appleby-Brisco escaped to Portugal in 2016 with plans to start a more “affordable” life with their two young daughters. in Channel 4‘s Our Wildest Dreams shares the story of your new beginning.
But the family has since faced a “storm of resentment” from locals, who allegedly killed their cats and then attacked their dog, which died from its injuries.
They have since returned to the UK, presenting a new set of challenges; The heartbreaking images, shared online, show the dream home they had hoped to restore but were forced to leave behind.
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The entrance to the Appleby-Brisco Portuguese home, which they were forced to leave after a “storm of resentment” from the locals.
Bags and boxes are stacked on top of a mattress inside one of the rooms, but the family says Portugal has now “taken everything we had.”
The living room, still under renovation, with a sofa, TV and some basic furniture.
A teddy bear sits on the sofa in the living room of the house, from which the family has been expelled due to alleged resentment from the locals.
Furniture and cups on top of a table in the country house, with a children’s play oven below
The country house, which the family hopes to sell when they move to the UK so they can start a new life.
The Appleby-Briscos’ move to the remote village was filmed for Channel 4’s Our Wildest Dreams. They are pictured on the show in 2018 here.
The images, released by Mrs Appleby-Brisco in a bid to sell the house, show the living room and several bedrooms, with mattresses still wrapped and furniture lining the walls.
Carrying bags full of personal belongings are stacked on top of a mattress that is still in its plastic packaging.
The living room has a TV on the floor and, in front of it, a sofa and a rug, with a teddy bear in the corner of the plush sofa.
Elsewhere, drawers and coffee cups sit on top of a table in another room, surrounded by bags and boxes of hastily gathered belongings, including a children’s play oven.
A video also showed a converted attic, accessed via a staircase, with a large unused space that the family was never able to fill, and access to a balcony.
The Appleby-Briscos returned to the UK after being expelled from Portugal, but their problems did not end after returning to their homeland.
A close friend of the family told MailOnline that authorities did not consider the family’s situation “desperate enough” to merit help after landing in Britain.
Denny Lewis, who has started a fundraiser to help his friends, said: “She (Lynn) landed at Heathrow with her two daughters and had to catch the night bus to Bedford and went to a local Premier Inn.
“I went to see her and we got her clothes that a friend and other people had sent me. But local housing authorities said, and I quote, her situation “wasn’t bad enough.”
Ms Lewis added: “Apparently he wasn’t in a desperate enough state to get help so he started going to food banks and we have now started a GoFundMe page.”
‘Lynn had no money or anywhere to live and would have been on the streets. The local government would have left her on the street with two girls and they still do not help her.
‘He had paid his taxes for 30 years before going to Portugal. He was literally on the street and with very little money.
“As they didn’t want to help her, a friend and I found her a small place in Kempston. It’s like a small vacation chalet.
‘So she and the girls moved there, but she couldn’t get any help from the government.
“But Lynn is no evasive, so the moment she walked into the hotel, she was scheduling interviews to get a job.”
Lynn and Richard Appleby-Brisco moved to the Mediterranean country’s Guarda district in 2016, and are seen here on the Channel 4 show before their big move.
Lynn and Richard Appleby-Brisco moved abroad in 2016 to start a more “affordable” life with their two daughters (all pictured together) in the Portuguese district of Guarda.
Lynn said she was “afraid to be home alone” and “carried a knife” when she went to the farm.
Mrs Lewis said her friend was joined by her husband, who had made the return journey from Portugal by road and with some of his possessions.
He said the mother-of-two now works as a chef at a pub restaurant and works 12-hour shifts.
“It hasn’t been good, she and Richard certainly fell by the wayside,” he said.
The couple’s harrowing experience in Portugal reached a chilling climax when angry locals attacked the family dog, Cu, a star mountain retriever, who later died at the age of four.
Appleby-Brisco’s ordeal has chilling echoes of that of Orla Dargan, who faced years of threatening behavior from a neighbor and found her rescue dog dead in a shallow well after moving to Portugal in 2016.
The family of four, from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, say so after their goats were poisoned after a local admitted stealing their cat Ponyo and kitten Bubbles in January.
Appleby-Brisco, 51, said that when she confronted a villager about the mysterious deaths, she told him: “We’ve taken your pets and you’re next.”
She said Sun: ‘I just couldn’t take it anymore and it was my lowest point.
‘I was afraid of being alone at home, so I stayed all day in the biggest city to feel safe.
“It was so bad that when I went down to the farm I carried a knife with me and I consider myself a pacifist.”
The family believes they inadvertently put a target on their backs after their episode aired in 2018.
Among the scandalous bullying incidents, the family were spat at and called “English pigs”, while rumors spread that Appleby-Brisco was a devil-worshipping prostitute after she planted flowers outside their home.
The family flew home to the UK in February with a small suitcase containing a change of clothes and pajamas.
Appleby-Brisco and her children, Emily, 12, and Yvie, 10, now live in a one-bedroom apartment, while their father is still trying to sell the property in Portugal and recover all his belongings.
It comes after a former city investment banker who retired in the Algarve told MailOnline about her years of hell after an “aggressive” neighbor seized her land and evicted her from her home, forcing her to hide.
Richard is shown building their house in Portugal before they were forced to return to the UK.
The family have raised £3,700 through a GoFundMe page to try to recover from their failed plan to move abroad.
Orla Dargan bought her dream Portuguese villa for around £600,000 in 2016
Orla Dargan in Portugal with her rescue dog Henry, who she claims was “killed” amid an ongoing border dispute
Orla Dargan bought her dream Portuguese villa for around €600,000 in 2016 and lived there happily for several years before her neighbour, a real estate agent she describes as a “dangerous” man, moved in next door.
The mother-of-two said she was warned about his “bad temper” and faced years of threatening behavior, including an alleged attempt to run her off the road near her home.
Their beloved rescue dog was also found dead, floating in a shallow well with horrific injuries.
The Appleby-Briscos have raised £3,800 through a GoFundMe page to try to recover from the failed plan to move abroad.
On the page, Ms Appleby-Brisco wrote: ‘We arrived in Portugal almost eight years ago full of enthusiasm to start a new and sustainable life. We were followed by the film crew from Channel Four’s Our Wildest Dreams because we wanted to inspire others.
“At first our lives were great, we wanted to integrate locally, so we didn’t mix so much with the expats, we put our daughters in the village school, we bought a small farm on the outskirts of the village, we started to learn the language better, we didn’t everything we think well.
“We didn’t know there was a storm of resentment in the town towards us, we hadn’t done anything wrong, so why would we question it?”
Channel 4 has been contacted for comment.