IT doesn't look much, but it's a £120,000 holiday pad in Gower that's home to very unusual summer guests.

Its location is secret to protect its upside-down inhabitants. The old cottage is a genuine bat roost, specially designed to protect a nationally-important colony of lesser horseshoe bats.

Many people would give their right arm to renovate a tumbledown property in Britain's first Area of Natural Outstanding Beauty, but the Vincent Wildlife Trust got there first.

In 2002, the charity bought the freehold for the site after a local bat group discovered 120 bats had been roosting there for several summers in a row.

The trust then got to work transforming the derelict cottage into the ultimate bat des res, splashing out a total of £120,000, including the purchase of the site.

Trust spokeswoman Hilary Macmillan said the roost was a great success. "The cottage is used during the summer months by bats as a nursery roost where they raise their young. It is the largest colony of lesser horseshoe bats in Gower, and in Glamorgan," she said.