The Gosnold family, who built tranquil Otley Hall at Otley, boasted high-flying connections in the Tudor period.

One of the loveliest Elizabethan houses in Suffolk is up for sale: Otley Hall, a magnificent, moated property that is one of few Grade I-listed houses in Suffolk still in private ownership. It’s on the market via Savills with an asking price of £2.5 million.

The manor was built by Robert Gosnold and other members of the Gosnold family in the 15th and 16th centuries, with alterations and additions carried out by subsequent owners in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

The Gosnolds had owned or been tenants of land in the area since 1401 and were living in Otley, where Robert was lord of the manor, from about 1440, although much of the hall as its stands today dates from the 16th century.

Notable rooms include the timber-framed Great Hall and the Linenfold Parlour, pictured below, whose splendid panelling is believed to have been stripped from Cardinal Wolsey’s chambers at Hampton Court Palace.

The Gosnolds were lawyers with links to the great, the good and the unlucky of the Tudor era – among them, Cardinal Wolsey, the ill-fated Earls of Essex and Southampton, the playwright 17th Earl of Oxford (a Gosnold cousin) and Francis Bacon.

Robert Gosnold III was Master of Requests to the Earl of Essex from 1599 to 1601 and the Royalist Col Robert Gosnold VI fought through three sieges during the Civil War.

Much has been made in guidebooks and local folklore of the role played in the founding of the first British settlement at Jamestown in what is now the USA by Robert Gosnold’s nephew, Bartholomew Gosnold, who lived at nearby Grundisburgh Hall. An introduction from his uncle secured a place for the young Bartholomew aboard the Earl of Essex’s expedition to the Azores in 1597.

He then joined Essex in privateering against the Spanish, thereby amassing a tidy fortune in a very short space of time. Irretrievably bitten by the exploration bug, in 1602, Bartholomew set out on a voyage to the New World, in the course of which he named Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard—the latter after his first-born daughter, who had died as an infant in 1598—but failed to establish a settlement.

On returning to England, he immediately set out to organise a second expedition, the planning and recruitment for which is said to have taken place in the Great Hall at Otley.

In 1606, he set sail again and, in 1607, was reputedly the prime mover in establishing the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, where he died of a fever later that year, at the age of 36. Broken by the Civil War, the Gosnolds eventually sold the manor in 1674.

Commenting on Gosnold’s Otley Hall connection in his masterful England’s Thou-sand Best Houses, Simon Jenkins dismisses the notion that the USA was, in effect, ‘founded’ at Otley as ‘fanciful’.

Instead, he suggests, ‘we should be content with a superb example of 16th century Suffolk architecture… an immaculate Tudor house with no edge untrimmed and no dust on any shelf (and where) a cobweb would be an arachnoid impertinence’.

That was in the early 2000s, when the hall was owned by the writer and philosopher Nicholas Hagger, who carried out significant renovations over the years. Let to tenant farmers during the 18th and 19th centuries, Otley Hall had been comprehensively restored in the early 20th century by the Edwardian architect Percy Morley Horder for Dorothy Sherston, who bought the manor in 1910 and also commissioned Francis Inigo Thomas to design a formal garden.

During their tenure at the Hall from 1997 to 2004, Mr Hagger and his wife, Ann, also greatly improved the gardens, which are both formal and informal and provide a wonderful setting for the house.

Their successors, the present owners of Otley Hall, have not only improved the house and its 9½ acres of gardens and grounds, but have also expanded the existing conference and hospitality centre into a unique venue for corporate events, weddings and retreat days – a small but profitable business that can be continued or not as a new purchaser wishes, the agents say.

Timber-framed with brick infill and some colour-wash render under a tiled roof, Otley Hall, described by Pevsner as an ‘outstanding individual house – charming and picturesque’, provides 8,260sq ft of living space on three floors, including three grand reception rooms, a reception hall, a moat room, a study, a minstrels’ gallery, a kitchen wing, 10 bedrooms, six bathrooms, and an integral staff flat.

10 tremendous Tudor properties for sale

Fancy your own Wolf Hall? These properties boast superb Tudor features, fit for a king.

The Tudor mansion in Sussex where Lutyens and Jekyll pooled their talents

Legh Manor: The Tudor mansion in Sussex where Lutyens and Jekyll worked together

The immaculately restored Tudor property once owned by a prolific society painter

The stylish renovation of Bilting Court has combined Tudor charm with all the comforts of 21st century living.

The site of picturesque Flemings Hall at Bedingfield was granted by William the Conqueror and remained in the same family for 900 years.

Flemings Hall in Suffolk has a history stretching back almost a millennium – and that history is about to have a new chapter as it is on the market on the market via Savills.

The site of the house was granted by William the Conqueror to one of his knights, Ogerus de Pugeys, who subsequently took the name of Bedingfield, after the Saxon name for the area. His family was to own the house for 900 years, until 1934.

During that time, Sir Peter Bedingfield fought alongside the Black Prince at the battle of Crécy and was present at the siege of Calais. His descendants include Sir Henry Bedingfield, Privy Councillor to Edward VI and Mary I and custodian of Elizabeth I during her imprisonment in the Tower of London.

In the 1960s, the stage photographer Angus McBean bought the house and embarked on a major restoration of the wonderfully atmospheric house and its almost 5½ acres of grounds.

He lived there until shortly before his death in 1990, since when subsequent owners have brought the house and grounds fully up to date.

Flemings Hall (on the market at a guide price of £3m) stands at the centre of a typically medieval, defensive fortified-moat system. The house is built around a medieval core with a king-post roof forming a long straight front with a brick two-storey porch built in about 1550. Of particular note is the central Great Hall, dating from 1306, with its magnificent fireplace, carved oak mantelpiece and full-height linen-fold chimney breast. Oak beams and rafters abound throughout the house and on every floor are arched brick Tudor fireplaces and oak panelling.

In all, the hall offers some 6,960sq ft of accommodation, including five reception rooms, a study, a kitchen/breakfast room, seven bedrooms and three bathrooms. Sec-ondary buildings include a recording-studio complex, an open-plan entertaining barn and a 16th-century thatched barn.

Flemings Hall is on the market at a guide price of £3m) – see more details and pictures. 

The enchanting Hampshire home that hosted Henry V before he marched to Agincourt

During the Middle Ages, The Palace House was one of the finest residences of the Bishops of Winchester.

Château de Lassay: The castle of Bluebeard’s widow

This magnificent French castle has a remarkably colourful history, as Desmond Seward explains.

Historic former rectory with a sixteenth century mural of Henry VIII inside

The Renaissance wall art has been highly valued by Christie's.

Historic Foscote Manor at Maids Moreton sits in 39 acres of landscaped gardens and parkland.

Joint agents Knight Frank (020–7861 1065) and Savills (020–7016 3713) quote a guide price of £7 million for impeccably restored, Grade II-listed Foscote Manor at Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire.

Set in 39 acres of landscaped gardens and parkland a couple of miles north of the university town of Buckingham, the manor of Foscote (or Foscott) is listed in the Domesday survey among lands belonging to the Bishop of Bayeux. According to Pevsner, in 1639, the property was acquired by Edward Grenville and he’s thought to have built the present house, some say in about 1656. Described as ‘a large square building of stone’, its front is Jacobean in style, with a 17th-century north-east front and a rebuilt 17th-century porch.

The Foscote estate remained with a branch of the Grenville family until the sale of the 2nd Duke of Buckingham’s estates in 1848, after which it passed to Lawrence Hall. His son, also Lawrence, succeeded him in 1866 and it was he who extended the house to the north-west in 1868; his widow had the south-east front remodelled in 1908.

Last seen on the market in 2009, the purchase of Foscote Manor by its current owners was the result of a carefully planned logistical exercise, in which a line was drawn around London showing suitable country-house locations within a maximum one-hour journey from the metropolis. Foscote Manor’s location 12 miles west of Milton Keynes with its super-fast, 35-minute train service to London Euston and easy access to the motorway network, via junction 14 of the M1 or junction 9 of the M40, surely helped to clinch the deal.

Metaphorically at least, not one of Foscote’s mellow stones was left unturned in the course of the restoration of the house and gardens that followed. The manor’s 11,345sq ft of living space includes an impressive reception hall, a staircase hall with a fine, ornate, 17th-century oak staircase, a light, triple-aspect drawing room, a splendid double-height dining room and a full-height oak-panelled sitting room.

Other well-planned rooms include an informal dining room and a light, modern family kitchen. Three first-floor bedroom suites include a vast master suite occupying the south and west wing with views over the park and two guest suites; the second floor houses four further bedrooms and two shared bathrooms.

Foscote Manor has been a blissful weekend retreat for its current owners, but with many family members having already moved on, the time has come to downsize. With little left to worry about, the next incumbents can make the most of the manor’s many amenities, which include lovely landscaped gardens, stabling, a swimming pool, a tennis court and a two-acre lake.

It may well be that the chronic shortage of high-quality country houses that has plagued the market in recent years could finally work to the advantage of substantial country houses that have been completely renovated in a style likely to appeal to today’s younger, more impatient buyers, who are bored with sitting on the sidelines and would be more than content to buy the entire contents of the house if it meant that all they had to do was walk through the door and unpack their bags.

A ‘manor house in miniature’ full of beautiful Tudor features

A 'manor house in miniature' full of beautiful Tudor features

A charming Hebridean cottage that’s a step back into a forgotten age

Motor vehicles aren't permitted on Easdale Island.

Move over Como: The lesser-known lakes of Italy

Still waters.

Recently renovated The Manor at Lillingstone Lovell is set in 120 acres and offers extensive equestrian facilities.

Knight Frank are handling the sale at a guide price of £6.25m of The Manor at Lillingstone Lovell, a beautifully crafted, 14,657sq ft house set in the middle of its 120 acres of land, six miles from Buckingham, seven miles from Silverstone and 34 miles from Oxford.

The current owners, who bought the property in 2008, have completely transformed the house, installing new services, new bathrooms and a vast, new kitchen with an open-plan breakfast area leading out into the garden.

The village of Lillingstone Lovell is one of the oldest and most unspoilt in Buckinghamshire and its name derives from the Old English for ‘Lytel’s boundary stone’, a reference to its proximity to the Northamptonshire border. Once a part of Oxfordshire controlled by the royal manor of Kirtlington, the village was transferred to Buckinghamshire under the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

In 1546, the manor was given by the King to Sir Nicholas Wentworth and remained in his family until 1784. The Wentworth family seat was a Tudor mansion, demolished when a cousin inherited the estate, the foundations of which are said to be visible in dry weather. In the early 1820s, the estate was sold to the Delap family from Northern Ireland and, in 1923, the estate was finally broken up and sold off, mainly to former tenants. The earliest part of the present manor, which is unlisted, dates from 1744, although the main house was built in 1860.

The house, built of locally quarried cut stone, is approached through grand entrance gates along a drive that leads through the deer park and woodland to a large gravelled courtyard at the front of the house. Grand living and family comfort are both well catered for in the main ground-floor reception rooms; spaces for amusement include a snooker room and bar, a cinema, a gym and a wine cellar.

Upstairs, a sumptuous master suite has two dressing rooms, a bathroom and a shower room, plus five further bedrooms, all with en-suite bathrooms. A self-contained annexe is currently used as offices.

For practitioners of equestrian sport at the highest level, The Manor boasts mouthwatering stabling and training facilities. The main stable yard, arranged around a large, enclosed stone-paved courtyard, has 14 loose boxes, two hot and cold wash/solarium boxes and all the usual tack, feed and storage rooms.

Nearby is a covered horse-walker and lunge pen and there is an Olympic-sized indoor school, together with a range of modern farm buildings and two isolation boxes. Most of the land is laid out as 16 post-and-railed grass paddocks and within the stable yard are two guest or staff cottages.

Royal Hospital Chelsea to host premier showjumping event

Nine of the world's top 10 riders will battle it out on the London leg of the Longines Global Champions

Equestrian properties for sale near National Hunt racecourses

With our national love affair with racing as strong as ever, why not consider a property within the vicinity of…

Striking 19th equestrian property in Roxburghshire

The country house of Sylvia Loch, international dressage trainer and author, is for sale in Roxburghshire.

Church Farm House is a beautiful place near Winchester that comes with a magnificent extra: a second country house within the grounds.

The idea of ‘buy one get one free’ is well-established in the world of supermarkets – but is rather more unusual in the world of picture-perfect country properties.

That’s something which makes Church Farm House, at Barton Stacey in Hampshire, rather unusual – this pair of houses is on the market with Knight Frank at a guide price of £2.15m.

The Bourne family have been custodians of handsome Church Farm House and the adjacent coach house at Barton Stacey, a pretty village on the River Dever just north of Winchester, since 1933. It was then that the present incumbent’s grandfather bought the property through Knight Frank on his retirement as headmaster of Haileybury. ‘It cost him a year’s salary to buy it,’ current owner Jeremy Bourne reveals.

Mr Bourne’s father was killed in the Second World War, having returned from the West Indies to join the RAF at the age of 17. Although he survived being shot down in a Spitfire, he later lost his life when his Gloster Meteor was brought down.

In 1966, following his grandmother’s death, Mr Bourne’s mother bought Church Farm House from the rest of the family and completely refurbished it.

As for the pretty, 19th-century coach house, that was converted in 1973, being split into two separate units, each with two bedrooms. This second property – known as The Cottage – was then run as a successful Wolsey Lodge.

According to local records, the parish of Barton Stacey takes its name from the Saxon period, when it was a Royal Manor of Edward the Confessor. Church Farm House is the oldest house in the village and the heart of the community, with the annual fête luring visitors along the ancient mile-long track leading from the village.

The oldest part of the property itself is said to be one of the earliest ‘flat pack houses’ built at Bucklers Hard on the Beaulieu River from old ships’ timbers and carried by ox cart to Barton Stacey, where it was assembled.

The main house is impressively timber-framed, with brick, stone and flint walls under a tiled roof, the old part comprising the massive, two-storeyed late-medieval frame, thought to date from the 15th century. The present building includes late-18th-century additions and alterations and minor additions from the early and late 1900s.

Also listed is the roadside garden wall of plastered cob with a thatched capping, although thatched cottages became a thing of the past in Barton Stacey village itself when, in 1792, a spark from the forge started a major fire that destroyed many of the houses.

Little altered since 1966 and now in need of renovation, the main house has 3,748sq ft of living space, including an entrance hall, three reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, a master bedroom and bathroom, four further bedrooms and a family bathroom.

The Cottage is 1,778sq ft in total, split into a pair of two-bedroom units, each self-contained and spread over two floors with their own front doors and staircases.

There are also stables and stores with obvious development potential, while the grounds – over six acres of them – include a swimming pool, gardens laid mainly to lawn, an orchard, a stream and a copse, plus that most precious of commodities in this part of the world: a large paddock formerly known as Marsh’s Meadow.

Church Farm House and the adjacent cottage are on the market with Knight Frank at a guide price of £2.15m – see more details and pictures.

Ecclesden Manor is an ever-changing marvel of a house that has seen great changes in the last 700 years – and now it's time for the next custodians to take it on.

In A Book of Houses, the eminent Victorian architect Ernest Newton defines the essence of what Country Life might modestly refer to as a ‘smaller country house’, but which most people today would call ‘a good-sized, manageable country home’.

‘A small house,’ Newton wrote in 1890, ‘is in many ways more difficult to design than a large one, for while every part must be minutely schemed, nothing should be cramped or mean looking, the whole house should be conceived broadly and simply, and with an air of repose, the stamp of home.’

That seems the perfect description for the Grade II*-listed Ecclesden Manor, near the West Sussex village of Angmering, which is for sale via Savills at a guide price of £2.95 million.

Trailing clouds of happy memories for its owner, Sue Holland, whose family home it’s been for 25 years, Ecclesden Manor stands in some 10 acres of landscaped gardens, lakes and light woodland, a mile east of this village on the southern boundary of the South Downs National Park.

First recorded in 1324, and still the most imposing building surviving in the Angmering area, the manor is described in Pevsner as ‘a long, low, comfortable, Tudor-looking building; it takes a keen eye to spot the tiny 17th century touches’.

Although its 1954 listing claims that the house was built by John Forster in 1634, recent research suggests that it was more likely the work of three generations of the Baker family, who were landowners and farmers in these parts before 1590.

In 1751, the farmhouse, built of brick and knapped flint, comprised the kitchen, hall and parlour on the ground floor, with three main bedrooms above and servants’ rooms on the attic floor.

A photograph from 1910 shows the house looking much as it does today, having been extended to the east in the 1870s, when the accommodation apparently included four reception rooms, seven principal bedrooms, eight secondary bedrooms and a billiard room.

By the early 1900s, the manor had been separated from the farmland and was let to ‘gentry’, until, in 1912, the entire estate was bought by Walter Butcher who, according to Angmering historian Francis Skeet, ‘with great care and taste restored the ancient edifice to its former worthiness, as an early seventeenth century manor house’.

Precisely what changes Butcher made to the house are unclear, but today’s accommodation includes all the important 17th-century rooms, among them the entrance hall, the medieval screens passage, the drawing room/Oak Room, the library and the dining room.

There are also more recent additions, such as the garden room (below) and the kitchen – ‘although it took me 15 years to persuade my husband to install a new one,’ Mrs Holland says.

There are four main bedrooms, a dressing room and three bathrooms on the first floor and the attic rooms on the second floor have potential for conversion to five bedrooms or a self-contained three-bedroom flat.

Mrs Holland recalls the enthusiasm with which she and her late husband embarked on the renovation of the house and grounds following their arrival in 1992: ‘First of all, we rebuilt the entire roof, which I’m told is now good for another 100 years.

‘Then, we redid the wiring and redecorated the whole house, especially the Oak Room and the dining room.

‘At the same time, we called in garden designer John Brookes, whom we knew well, to redesign the garden with ease of maintenance a priority. As a result, I can manage the garden on my own – something I thoroughly enjoy.’

She continues: ‘I’ve always enjoyed entertaining and the house lends itself equally well to doing that on both a large and a small scale.

‘However, in the end, owners of historic houses are only custodians for a time – Ecclesden Manor has been a wonderful family house and it now needs a family again.’

Ecclesden Manor, near the West Sussex village of Angmering, is up for sale via Savills at a guide price of £2.95 million – see more pictures and details.

Best country houses for sale this week

Missed last week's issue? You can still view its magnificent property pages and articles here.

A picture-perfect castle for sale just outside London

Could this be England’s smallest castle? Well, not quite. But it might be the most practical.

A romantic cottage in the heart of the Cotswolds at the price of a small city flat

A heart-stoppingly romantic cottage in the Cotswolds has come to the market at a price which will make city dwellers…

Romantic Ashiestiel House at Clovenfords was inhabited by the novelist in the early 1800s.

Glorious landscapes and a grand country-sports tradition have long made the unspoilt Scottish Borders a favoured stamping ground for English buyers, says Evelyn Channing of Savills in Edinburgh (0131–247 3720), who wants ‘offers over £5.5m’ for the spectacular, 863-acre Ashiestiel estate on the banks of the River Tweed, a mere five miles from Galashiels and its 50-minute Borders Rail-way link to Edinburgh, 35 miles to the north.

Tucked away in a quiet wooded corner of the estate stands Ashiestiel House, a fine Category A-listed country house that was home to the novelist Sir Walter Scott from 1804 until 1812, when he moved to nearby Abbotsford, which he had bought the previous year. Scott’s eight years at Ashiestiel are said to have been among the happiest of his life. In fact, the writer Theo Lang reckoned that, had Scott been able to buy Ashiestiel, the ambitious project of Abbotsford might never have happened.

At Ashiestiel, says Lang, ‘the study was both his dining and writing room, in which were composed the Lay of the Last Minstrel, The Lady of the Lake, and Marmion, as well as about a third of Waverley’. A romanticised watercolour of Ashiestiel was painted by J. M. W. Turner as an illustration for Marmion in the 1830s.

Originally a 17th-century pele tower, Ashiestiel House was later extended and enlarged, before being completed in the 19th century with the addition of an east wing. Built on two main floors over a lower ground floor, it has been refurbished throughout by its current owners since 2011, a project that included complete re-wiring, re-plumbing and re-roofing of the entire building, the installation of a new family kitchen, seven new bath/shower rooms to complement the master suite and six further bedrooms on the first floor and the creation of a TV room, games room and secure gun room on the lower-ground floor. A reception hall and four grand reception rooms are located on the main floor, all of which have splendid views of the surrounding grounds.

The estate itself is managed in hand and offers several income streams from a number of let houses and cottages, two newly created commercial woodland plantations, ultra-modern equestrian facilities (currently unused but with letting potential), a productive livestock unit and – the estate’s crown jewel – its 1¾ miles of single-bank salmon and sea-trout fishing on the Tweed, a popular beat for up to six rods, with a seventh rod reserved for house use.

Spectacular Scottish castles and estates for sale

We take a look at the finest country houses, castles and estates for sale in Scotland

Striking 19th equestrian property in Roxburghshire

The country house of Sylvia Loch, international dressage trainer and author, is for sale in Roxburghshire.

A breathtaking West Highlands estate with mountains, forests and lochs to call your own

A magnificent sporting estate, extending to 11,105 acres in total, has come to the market in the West Highlands – and…

The Bolfracks estate includes a beat of salmon fishings on the Upper Tay, one of Scotland’s ‘big four’ salmon rivers.

Some 50 miles north-west of Edinburgh, Strutt & Parker (0131–226 2500) and their subsidiary, John Clegg & Co (0131–229 8800), have just launched the magnificent, 3,790-acre Bolfracks estate near Aberfeldy in the heart of Highland Perthshire, on the market at ‘offers over £10.9m’ for the whole or in 16 lots.

Owned by the same family since 1922, the exemplary mixed-use estate has provided both home and livelihood to the present owners since the 1980s. Bolfracks also boasts a wide range of assets, including the main, nine-bedroom Bolfracks House, with its famous ornamental garden and majestic setting overlooking the Upper Tay; the modern, five-bedroom Tombuie house overlooking Loch Tay; and a residential property portfolio of 10 additional houses and cottages. Income streams include an in-hand organic livestock farm with a first-class range of buildings and facilities, a number of commercial forestry plantations, a run-of-river hydro-electric scheme, leisure and tourism projects and a diverse range of traditional fieldsports, including a beat of salmon fishings on the Upper Tay, one of Scotland’s ‘big four’ salmon rivers.

Originally a Stuart property, Bolfracks was bought by a branch of the Menzies family, who owned it throughout the 18th century and built the original Bolfracks House, which was later enlarged and gentrified. In the early 1800s, the estate was acquired by the Campbell family, Earls of Breadalbane, as part of a very large estate centred on the neo-Gothic Taymouth Castle, completed in 1842. During much of the Campbell family’s ownership, Bolfracks House was used by the estate factor; the Gothic front was added in about 1830.

There has been an ornamental garden at Bolfracks since the mid 18th century, although most of what exists today was due to work commissioned in the mid 1970s by the late Douglas Hutchison, the uncle of the present owner. The stream garden was designed by Ian Lawrie of Dundee along the course of Bolfracks Burn and restored and replanted between 1983 and 1985.

Spectacular Scottish castles and estates for sale

We take a look at the finest country houses, castles and estates for sale in Scotland

A house by the waterside where magnificent views meet all mod cons

The houses we feature at Country Life are often hundreds of years old. This one is a relative baby – but…

A breathtaking West Highlands estate with mountains, forests and lochs to call your own

A magnificent sporting estate, extending to 11,105 acres in total, has come to the market in the West Highlands – and…

The Ledgowan estate at Achnasheen in Wester Ross offers sport, accommodation and several income streams.

A short flight to Inverness airport, or a romantic overnight trip by sleeper train from London, followed by a spectacular 41-mile drive to the village of Achnasheen in Wester Ross is one of several easy routes to the majestic, 11,105-acre, West Highland sporting estate of Ledgowan, now on the market through Strutt & Parker at a guide price of ‘offers over £4.5m’ for the whole or in two lots. Described by the agents as ‘a 21st-century estate’, Ledgowan offers a combination of traditional sport, first-class accommodation in a spectacular setting and significant income from sporting lettings and a new hydro-electricity-generation scheme operated by a specialist renewable-energy company.

During its seven years in the hands of its present owner, the main estate house, Ledgowan Lodge, has been remodelled, structurally improved and thoroughly renovated and redecorated, with the cre-ation of six bedroom suites, a modern kitchen and breakfast room and a large oak-panelled games room on the ground floor. The owner has also built a four-bedroom lodge as overflow accommodation for smaller parties.

Accessibility within the estate has been transformed by the creation of a 10-mile network of new hill roads, which has significantly improved the scope of the stalking, opening it up to sportsmen of all levels of physical fitness, thereby enabling the estate to attract a premium rental income, especially from European clients. The stalking record shows a five-year average of 38 stags. Other sport includes grouse shooting, rough shooting for mixed game and fishing for trout and pike on four lochs or for trout and salmon on a short, single-bank stretch of the River Bran.

The 6,206-acre Gualin estate, at Durness, Sutherland offers fishing on Loch Dionard as well as the River Dionard.

Fishing fanatics can find Highland sporting heaven on the rugged north-west tip of Scotland, where Knight Frank (0131–222 9600) are handling the sale of the 6,206-acre Gualin estate near the village of Durness, Sutherland, otherwise known as ‘the last outpost’ due to its proximity to Cape Wrath, the most north-westerly point of the British mainland.

Claimed to be ‘the only proper fishing estate for sale in Scotland’ by selling agent Tom Stewart-Moore, who seeks ‘offers over £2.6m’ for the estate as a whole, Gualin’s appeal centres on its 7½ miles of double-bank salmon and sea-trout fishing on the River Dionard (pronounced Djer-nard), along with fishing rights on Loch Dionard, renowned among ‘fishing nuts’ as the best sea-trout loch in Scotland.

Once part of the vast Sutherland estates of the Dukes of Sutherland, Gualin was bought in 1935 by the redoubtable Marjorie Ferguson, known locally as ‘a woman of legendary eccentricity, fixed views and
a passion bordering on mania for salmon fishing’. In 1976, she sold the middle section of the River Dionard to a syndicate and, two years later, gave the remainder of the estate and river to her son, Edmund, who died in a car crash two months later. After that, Mrs Ferguson appears to have lost interest in the estate and it was eventually sold by her grandchildren to four families, three of whom still own it and are now selling due to impending retirement.

Creature comforts are provided at Gualin in the recently renovated traditional five-bedroom lodge, originally built as an inn by the Duke of Sutherland in 1833. It stands on high ground with wonderful southerly views over Strath Dionard, against the imposing backdrop of the Foinavon Hills. It presently provides 2,740sq ft of living space on two floors, but could be extended to the side and rear, subject to the usual planning consents.

Adjoining the lodge is the three-bedroom Keeper’s house, next to which is a self-contained one-bedroom guest flat, with a one-bedroom gillie’s flat located above the fish room.

A beautiful country house and estate in the heart of the Surrey Hills comes to the market

The present owners have spent £6m to make Pickhurst, at Chiddingfold the ultimate sophisticated sporting estate.

Spectacular Scottish castles and estates for sale

We take a look at the finest country houses, castles and estates for sale in Scotland

A breathtaking West Highlands estate with mountains, forests and lochs to call your own

A magnificent sporting estate, extending to 11,105 acres in total, has come to the market in the West Highlands – and…

Grade I-listed Stibbington Hall is set in 19 acres on the banks of the Nene.

On August 27, 1904, Country Life intoned grandly: ‘Houses of the class of Stibbington Hall have a particular claim upon the regard of Englishmen. They are to be found in every shire, but are most numerous in some districts in which the inhabitants enjoyed the fuller measure of that prosperity which came with Tudor and Stuart times, when the roads were improved and the waterways made more available.’

The writer goes on to lament the lost status of so many of ‘these houses of strong and solid character, mostly fallen to decay, often reduced to the character of farmhouses; and not seldom does the peasant sit by the fireside about which gathered the family of the Cavalier’.

Only once in its long history did such a fate befall the Grade I-listed Jacobean Stibbington Hall, now on the market for £3.5 million via King West.

The house was built in 1625, which sits in 19 acres of formal gardens, lawns and paddocks on a loop of the River Nene, eight miles west of Peterborough, in what was historically the north-west corner of Huntingdonshire, but is now Cambridgeshire.

The calamity took place after 1757, when the then owner died and the house was leased to a farmer.

There followed a period of decline that was swiftly rectified when, in the early 1800s, Edward Steed Girdlestone bought the hall and carried out a sympathetic programme of repairs and improvements, before moving there in 1836.

Following his death in 1843, his widow – the third ‘merry widow’ to play a part in the evolution of Stibbington Hall – gave the property to her daughter on her marriage to John Maylin Vipan, a respected local Justice of the Peace.

The status of Stibbington Hall as a country house of importance was to be greatly enhanced by their eldest son, Capt John Alexander Vipan, who came to live at the hall with his mother after 1880.

Internationally renowned as a naturalist and ichthyologist, he maintained ‘the finest collection of freshwater fish in Europe’ in two greenhouses in the kitchen garden – a collection transferred to the London Zoo a few years before he died in 1939, aged 90.

Other greenhouses housed ferns and orchids, several of which were named after him, and his collection of butterflies and moths was said to be one of the best in Huntingdonshire.

Capt Vipan also transformed the gardens at Stibbington, which today still include several greenhouses, a kitchen garden, a formal garden, elegant, stone-edged lily ponds and a small park, all laid out between 1875 and 1899. The house itself was well maintained, but remained largely unaltered during his lifetime, leading Country Life to comment: ‘This Huntingdonshire dwelling-place has been fortunate, unlike many such houses, in preserving its features unchanged.’

Following Capt Vipan’s death in 1939, the hall and its 19 acres of grounds were bought by Londoner Philip Frere MC, but he never lived there. The house was put back on the market the following year and was promptly requisitioned as an RAF hospital.

After the war, a succession of distinguished owners – among them Sir Guy Thorold, Lord George Cholmondeley, Sir Peter Benton Jones, Sir Stephen Hastings and their successors – were largely content to maintain the status quo at Stibbington Hall, apart from some restoration of the house and garden in the 1980s and some sensible updating since then.

The reappearance of this Jacobean gem in the advertisement pages of Country Life, at a guide price of £3.5 million through the Stamford office of King West, whose principal, Stephen King, has twice previously been involved with its sale: in 1993, when it sold for £980,000 and in 2005, when it was on the market for £2.7m.

Still set in 19 acres on the banks of the Nene, this impressive house, built of creamy Ketton stone under a Collyweston slate roof, was said by Pevsner to boast ‘the finest Jacobean façade in Huntingdonshire’.

It now offers a manageable 8,590sq ft of living space, including six reception rooms, a fabulous kitchen/breakfast room, a good range of service rooms, nine bedrooms and four bathrooms and comes with a three-bedroom former coach house, a two-bedroom cottage and outbuildings. Amenities include stabling, a heated swimming pool and a tennis court.

Stibbington Hall is on the market at a guide price of £3.5 million through the Stamford office of King West – see more details and pictures,

The best places to live for commuters: Cambridgeshire

Country Life selects the best places to live in Cambridgeshire based on quality of life and an easy commute into…

The Elizabethan manor that offered refuge to Charles II as he fled to France

Few houses can boast hundreds of years of history and a sparkling future.

An enchanting rural estate with an Elizabethan manor house at its heart

Magical Higher Melcombe estate boasts a Grade I listed farmhouse and a range of cottages.

Eight bedroom Hanlith Hall is set in 64 acres of splendid gardens, parkland and woodland.

Stately 17th-century Hanlith Hall at Kirkby Malham, near Skipton, North Yorkshire, is one of those grand historic houses ‘of strong and solid character’ and had been rented out for long periods and largely neglected when, in the early 18th century, the Serjeantsons, who built the original hall in 1668, decided to move their family seat to Camphill, near Bedale.

By the latter half of the 19th century, however, the Serjeantson family’s fortunes had declined and, in 1861, Hanlith Hall and the bulk of its estate were put up for sale, but failed to find a buyer.

Its then owner, George John Serjeantson, had no children and, when he died in 1889, he left the family estates to a cousin’s widow, Elizabeth Serjeantson, who sold Camphill, rebuilt Hanlith Hall in the style of a typical Victorian mansion and moved the family back there to live.

In 1909, Mrs Serjeantson rented the hall to Dudley and Florence Holden Illingworth who later bought it, having already spent a tidy sum on the building in 1911–12, when they greatly extended the east wing, added more bedrooms, a belvedere tower and a billiard room, as well as creating new gardens.

When Mr Illingworth died in 1958, his Hanlith Hall estate was offered for sale by auction in 16 lots by Knight, Frank & Rutley in October 1959 and the hall was bought by a builder, who planned to demolish it.

Miraculously, the house escaped the fate of so many of its historic contemporaries when William Bulmer (later Sir William) stepped in and bought it after the sale.

In 1962, the Bulmers demolished the tower and removed the upper storey above the ballroom, which had fallen into disrepair, but has since been reinstated by the present owners. Sir William and his wife then went on to convert some estate outbuildings into a smaller house for themselves and the hall was sold once more.

Last seen on the market in 1999, Hanlith Hall is for sale once again through Knight Frank at a guide price of £2.95m for the eight-bedroom house, with four/five reception rooms, set in 64 acres of splendid gardens, parkland and woodland on the edge of the hamlet of Hanlith, in the picturesque heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Amenities include an indoor swimming pool, a stable yard with six loose boxes and about a mile of fishing on the River Aire, which meanders along the south-western boundary. Also included in the sale are the shooting rights, in perpetuity, over some 2,053 acres of the adjoining estate.

Hanlith Hall at Kirkby Malham, near Skipton, North Yorkshire, is for sale via Knight Frank at £2.95m – see more details and pictures.,

A Highland sporting haven for fishing fanatics

The 6,206-acre Gualin estate, at Durness, Sutherland offers fishing on Loch Dionard as well as the River Dionard.

A pocket-sized Downton Abbey for sale on the edge of the Peak District

Rockwood House in Denby Dale is a beautiful mansion that's rather reminiscent of a more famous big brother.

The grand house with the largest library west of Salisbury

The library at Chanters House was designed for Lord Coleridge’s 18,000 books.

Felthorpe Hall stands in a wonderfully private setting at the heart of its 125 acres of formal gardens, woodland, lakes and farmland.

In the medieval period, Norfolk was the most densely populated and the most intensively farmed region in England and, as late as the mid 1800s, life in the county was dominated by more than 100 gentry families who owned estates of 2,000 acres or more.

After 1875, however, many big landowners were hit, not only by a nationwide agricultural depression, but by a burden of family debt accumulated over generations. As a result, from the 1880s onwards, great estates disappeared as parks, farms and woodlands were sold off to buyers from outside the county and members of England’s bustling new business ‘aristocracy’ enhanced their status by buying and restoring once-grand Norfolk halls and country houses.

Felthorpe Hall at Felthorpe was luckier than most of them. Currently for sale through Knight Frank at a guide price of £4 million, this handsome, Grade II-listed building in a small rural village eight miles north of Norwich had successive owners who lavished care and attention on the grand Georgian house and its grounds.

Consequently, despite being altered and extended over the years and serving as a Red Cross Hospital in both World Wars, the 14,360sq ft hall, which stands in a wonderfully private setting at the heart of its 125 acres of formal gardens, woodland, lakes and farmland, has retained the grace and elegance of a traditional family seat.

Built on two storeys of white gault brick under a slate roof by wealthy wine merchant John Geldart soon after 1825, Felthorpe Hall was later extended to the north, with the addition of a three-storey tower and a new porch and entrance between the original three-bay east wing and the later, four-bay north wing. For much of the 19th century, the hall was owned by the Fellowes family, county grandees whose philanthropy was appreciated by the local community.

In 1935, Sir Basil Mayhew, the director of a London accountancy firm who was knighted in 1920, bought Felthorpe Hall, having married the former Beryl Colman, of the Colman mustard-milling dynasty. He went on to make his mark on the Norfolk business scene and was appointed High Sheriff of Norfolk in 1940.

He altered and extended the hall on his arrival and owned it until 1958. Five years later, Felthorpe Hall was bought by the legendary Norfolk businessman Geoffrey Watling, who rose from running his father’s modest horse-drawn-transport business to become the owner of 200 different businesses in his lifetime; he’s especially revered for rescuing Norwich City FC from bankruptcy on more than one occasion.

Mr Watling lived at the hall until his death in 2004, by which time the property, which in his heyday had been the envy of his peers, was looking somewhat frayed around the edges.

Three years or so later, the current owners acquired the hall and embarked on an inspirational renovation and modernisation programme that merited a Broadland Conservation Award in 2009.

The work included the installation of underfloor heating and air conditioning in the principal rooms, together with high-spec wiring and CCTV systems. The grand ground-floor reception rooms – in particular, the drawing room, dining room and morning room, which have wonderful views over the gardens and grounds – have all been restored to their former splendour.

The bespoke, state-of-the-art main kitchen is a culinary work of art in oak and burr walnut, to the east of which is a gym and, beyond that, an indoor swimming pool. The first floor has been reconfigured to provide a sumptuous three-room master suite, three en-suite bedrooms, three further bedrooms and a bathroom, with two more bedrooms on the second floor.

Further accommodation is available in the converted two-bedroom coach house and the pretty, two-bedroom thatched lodge cottage. With an eye to the future, a range of brick barns, for which various residential planning consents are in hand, has already been built to a shell.

Grade II-listed Felthorpe Hall is for sale through Knight Frank at a guide price of £4 million – see more details and pictures.

The house of Tudor England’s most infamous villain comes to the market

Following the Dissolution, Sir Richard Rich, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentation bought Littley Park.

A superb Tudor house boasting splendid panelling from Hampton Court Palace

The Gosnold family, who built tranquil Otley Hall at Otley, boasted high-flying connections in the Tudor period.

A Tudor house up for sale that stayed in one family for nearly a thousand years

The site of picturesque Flemings Hall at Bedingfield was granted by William the Conqueror and remained in the same family…

The Old Vicarage at Sedgeford is constructed of shale Carrstone using a labour-intensive technique.

As Sir John Betjeman sagely observed: ‘Norfolk would not be Norfolk without a church tower on the horizon or round a corner up a lane.’

In fact, Norfolk has more than 650 medieval churches, a rich architectural legacy that’s spawned the many enchanting rectories and old vicarages for which the county is rightly famous.

They come in all shapes and sizes, but among the most striking is Grade II-listed Old Vicarage at Sedgeford, four miles from Hunstanton on the prosperous north coast, which is currently for sale through Strutt & Parker for ‘offers over £1.795m’.

The Victorian former vicarage, built in the Gothic Revival style in about 1840, is one of Norfolk’s famous ‘gingerbread houses’, constructed of shale Carrstone using a labour-intensive technique whereby narrow slats of the locally quarried sandstone were laid out so that no mortar was visible – seen here to dramatic effect against the backdrop of the building’s tall gabled roofs topped with finials.

Surrounded by mature trees, the house stands on the south-facing slope of the Heacham River valley, with views through the trees over the local AONB.

Having acquired Old Vicarage in an abject state of disrepair in 1991, the present owners have totally renovated the house and its 1½ acres of enchanting gardens and are now downsizing to a smaller house nearby.

Old Vicarage comes with 6,826sq ft of internal space that includes four reception rooms, a large master suite, two further first-floor bedroom suites and three second-floor bedrooms.

Old Vicarage is for sale through Strutt & Parker for offers over £1.795m – see more details and pictures.


Charming old school house designed by a founding member
 of the Institute of British Architects

Stunning neo-Gothic property, close to the beach.

The house of Tudor England’s most infamous villain comes to the market

Following the Dissolution, Sir Richard Rich, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentation bought Littley Park.

Waddesdon Manor, via the medium of gingerbread

Luxury confectionery crafters Biscuiteers have re-created the glory of French Renaissance-style chateau Waddesdon Manor in gingerbread.

The 2nd Viscount Mackintosh of Halifax bought The Old Hall at Barford in the 1950s.

The sale of The Old Hall at Barford, four miles north of Wymondham and seven miles from Norwich – on the market through the Norwich office of Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £1.85m – recalls an illustrious chapter in Norfolk’s business history, and in the history of British sweets.

Following a slap-up lunch at the Savoy in 1932, the 1st Viscount Mackintosh of Halifax agreed to buy a confectionary firm by the name of A. J. Caley from Unilever.

The Mackintosh company had previously been famous for their toffees, but buying Caley gave them access to a chocolate factory for the first time. Four years later, the company would create one of Britain’s most-enduring brands of chocolate: Quality Street.

The purchase of this Norfolk firm was the start of the Mackintosh family’s long association with the county, which led to the purchase, in the 1950s, of The Old Hall by his son, John, the 2nd Viscount, who lived there with his second wife, Gwynneth, until his death in 1980, at the age of 59.

Lady Mackintosh lived on at the hall until shortly before her own death, aged 75, in 2007, by which time Strutt & Parker had sold the hall on her behalf to its current owners.

The Old Hall is a handsome red-brick country house, hung with Boston ivy, which is thought to date from the 17th century, with various later additions.

It stands in 3.4 secluded acres of beautifully landscaped gardens and grounds in the heart of the village and, being unlisted, has been beautifully renovated and extended by the owners, who have created a ‘sensational’ kitchen/breakfast room/orangery overlooking the secure rear courtyard, selling agent Tom Goodley reveals.

They have also rejigged the first floor to accommodate new bathrooms and a superb master bedroom suite. In all, the house boasts some 10,000sq ft of living space, including four/five reception rooms, eight first-floor bedrooms and six bathrooms, with two further bedrooms on the second floor.

Ancillary buildings include a three/four-bedroom cottage, outbuildings and garaging; amenities include a hard tennis court, a summer house and a heated swimming pool.

The Old Hall is on the market through the Norwich office of Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £1.85m – see more details and pictures.

‘One of Durham’s finest houses’ comes to the market

Broomshiels Hall is classic Georgian country house set within extensive gardens.

Classic Georgian country house with secret passageways for sale

An historic Derbyshire country house with extensive outbuildings, pretty grounds and two subterranean passageways is for sale

A grand house that offers a striking fusion of Georgian and 21st century design

Naldrett House looks every inch the archetypal Georgian country house from the front. But only from the front...

The world's super-rich are shrugging off the uncertainty that permeates the world and heading to the Wentworth Estate. Penny Churchill takes a look at the sort of places they've been snapping up once they get there.

In a sector of the marketplace that traditionally hates uncertainty and thrives in times of prosperity, who would have thought that the world’s richest people would be lining up to view the most expensive new mansions for sale in north Surrey’s most exclusive estates?

Yet Tim Garbett of Knight Frank in Esher says that’s exactly what is happening right in places such as Wentworth and St George’s Hill. ‘Activity has been liveliest in the £15 million–£30 million price bracket,’ he says, suggesting that anxious investors see such places as ‘safe havens’.

Given the sums involved, however, the best of everything is a must:  ‘Buyers at this level are notoriously demanding and, although security may be a prime concern, there’s no question of compromising on quality,’ he says.

‘Any house that fails to tick every box on their wish list in terms of location, construction, design and layout won’t get a second look.

‘On the other hand, knowing that the perfect house is a rare animal, they will often wait two or three years for the right one to come along and, when it does, they rarely haggle about the price’.

Here are three such places which fit the bill:

Hurstbourne, £25,000,000

London-based developer Consero identified a gap in the Surrey country-house market for high-spec new 21st-century mansions back in 2004 – since then, they’ve sold over £1 billion worth of property in London and the Home Counties, the most recent of which is Hurstbourne, on the prestigious Wentworth estate, which was on the market at £25m and sold in mid August to an Asian buyer.

With materials sourced from around the globe, the imposing 23,000sq ft mansion incorporates some spectacular original elements, including a dramatic façade of French limestone, hand-carved by Artisans of Paris, and is powered throughout by the latest in user-friendly technology.

Lofty, 12ft-plus ceilings allow views of the grounds and golf course from all the main ground-floor rooms, while decor clearly aimed at the international market includes a vast master suite with bathrooms finished in gleaming mother-of-pearl and a sumptuous dining room lined with handmade silk wall finishes from the Far East.

Dawn Hill, £29,000,000

For those who missed out on Hurstbourne, the house’s sister building elsewhere on the Wentworth Estate – the 26,150sq ft Dawn Hill – is for sale through Knight Frank and Hanover Private Office at a guide price of £29m.

Dawn Hill is another paragon of Palladian magnificence, set in three acres of mature landscaped gardens, with the same vast Classical proportions and iconic façade, hand-carved in Paris from natural French limestone.

The ground floor, built around a 52ft-long grand hallway with 12½ft-high ceilings lit by glittering chandeliers and intricately carved stonemasonry, sets the scene.

All the main entertaining and family living spaces are accessed from here, including the 22-seat dining room, the custom-designed kitchen, the family room, drawing room, library, study, reading room and morning room.

The first floor houses six luxurious bedroom suites linked by a central hallway.

The 1,650sq ft master suite, which incorporates a lounge area, separate his-and-her bathrooms and huge dressing rooms, enjoys beautiful views over the treetops from three south-facing balconies.

Playtime takes place on the lower-ground floor, the centrepiece of which is a leisure complex with 10½ft-high ceilings and a 13m swimming pool, steam room, sauna, gym and a sunken limestone terrace opening out from the pool into the rear garden.

Other amenities include a sumptuous home cinema with the best digital-screen technology and tiered sofa seating for 18 guests.

On the lower level there is a showcase 2,000-bottle wine cellar, a games room and a bar, a massage and treatment suite and an eight-car underground garage. Also located on this floor is a four-bedroom staff apartment, with its own discrete entrance.

Dawn Hill is on the market via Knight Frank – see more details and pictures.

Bruton Park, £18,500,000

For something a little smaller – though only a little smaller, at just over 18,000sq ft – the newly-built Bruton Park also has plenty to recommend it.

The grand entertaining room, complete with two-tone parquet flooring and with French windows from which to spill out into the gardens, offers all sorts of possibilities.

The hallway offers similar grandeur, particularly with its enormous chandelier.

And for those who love their supercars too much not to see them every day, this house has a solution: a pool from which you can see through into a glass pod, where your Ferrari, E-Type or AC Cobra sits on a turntable to be admired as your splash about in the water.

Bruton Park is on the market via Barton Wyatt – see more details and pictures.

For sale: The last of Wentworth’s original houses, and the latest of its new breed

Penny Churchill uncovers two gorgeous family homes for sale in this exclusive area.

An exceptional equestrian estate with mouthwatering stabling and training facilities

Recently renovated The Manor at Lillingstone Lovell is set in 120 acres and offers extensive equestrian facilities.

Trillgate Farm is an enchanting period country house.

Unlisted Trillgate Farm at Painswick, near Stroud, sits in Gloucestershire’s beautiful Slad Valley – the famously magical setting for Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie.

For sale at a guide price of £2.5m with Strutt & Parker, the picturesque, 17th-century stone farmhouse was previously owned by the fashion designer and author Cath Kidston, who sold it to the present vendors.

It stands in 2.2 acres of beautiful gardens and grounds in a wonderfully private setting overlooking the valley and has 3,337sq ft of unexpectedly spacious accommodation including three reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, five bedrooms and four bathrooms.

Further living space is provided in a former barn, which has been cleverly converted to a huge open-plan studio.

The surrounding countryside offers many lovely walks and rides. Gloucestershire has long been associated with equestrian sports, such as National Hunt racing at Cheltenham, polo at Beaufort and Cirencester and the Badminton and Gatcombe Horse Trials.

The Woolpack Inn in Slad is well-regarded and serves local real ales, fine wines and locally-sourced seasonal food, making it a good focal point village life.

Nearby Stroud and Painswick have a good range of everyday shops and services, and the former also has an award-winning Farmers Market.

Trillgate Farm is for sale at a guide price of £2.5m with Strutt & Parker – see more details and pictures,

A magnificent lakeside home near Princess Anne’s Cotswolds estate

This beautiful 19th century house lies on Gatcombe Water, just around the corner from HRH Princess Anne's Gloucestershire home.

Mini-break: The Painswick, Gloucestershire

The cream of the Cotswolds.

A romantic cottage in the heart of the Cotswolds at the price of a small city flat

A heart-stoppingly romantic cottage in the Cotswolds has come to the market at a price which will make city dwellers…

Situated on the edge of the village, Broad Close is ideally located for a quick run through a field of wheat.

The elegant, Grade II-listed Broad Close at Church Enstone, Oxfordshire, three miles from Great Tew and Soho Farmhouse, 4.8 miles from Chipping Norton and 15 miles from central Oxford.

Built in the early and late 18th century in the classic Georgian style, Broad Close was recently identified in the press as the house ‘directly opposite’ the vicarage that was the childhood home of Prime Minister Theresa May during her father’s 12-year stint as vicar.

It stands in 1.7 acres of mainly walled gardens on the edge of this quiet Oxfordshire village, surrounded by rolling countryside and close to Heythrop Park. Strutt & Parker’s Oxford office are quoting a guide price of £2.5 million.

It offers 3,800sq ft of living space, including three main reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, four bedrooms and four bathrooms.

Outside, Broad Close boasts a pretty south-facing semi-formal garden on the Church side with lovely original gates and a beautifully laid out herb garden, close to the kitchen.

To the rear of the house is a York stone terrace, west facing and over-looking the extensive lawns. There is also a productive kitchen garden, orchard and soft fruit cage.

Broad Close is on the market at a guide price of £2.5 million – see more details and pictures.

Best country houses for sale this week

Missed last week's issue? You can still view its magnificent property pages and articles here.

Guide to the Cotswolds: What to do, places to stay, where to eat

Escape the city and relax in the idyllic beauty of the Cotswolds.

Described as 'charming beyond belief and in one of the most idyllic places to live in the Cotswolds', Green Close is a real rarity on the market.

Grade II-listed Green Close in the pretty village of Snowshill, Gloucestershire, sits high up on the Cotswold escarpment above the lovely stone village of Broadway – a place widely regarded as one of the most idyllic places to live in the north Cotswolds. The house – on the market via Savills for £3.8m – is described by agent Rob Fanshawe of Property Vision as ‘charming beyond belief’. It’s hard not to agree.

Green Close has been owned by the family of the current vendors for almost 100 years and relatively little altered during that time, exuding the authentic ‘old world’ atmosphere so rarely found in the Cotswolds these days.

Set in some 21 acres of terraced gardens, woods, lake and ancient pasture, it enjoys breathtaking views over the surrounding quintessentially English landscape.

The house has been featured in Country Life before: in August 1926 an article by Avery Tipping mentioned that Green Close was formerly four 17th-century cottages, remodelled to form one house for Mr H. Peech in about 1916 by the architect C. E. Bateman, renowned for his sensitive restoration of Cotswold vernacular properties.

It took great ingenuity to transform the four cottages into one pleasing L-shaped building, whose many original features include great open fireplaces, flagstone floors and mullion windows, all of which sit comfortably alongside the various Arts-and-Crafts elements added by Bateman.

This unspoilt Cotswold gem offers 3,563sq ft of living space, including impressive, high-ceilinged reception and staircase halls, two/three reception rooms, main and secondary kitchens, two bedrooms suites, three further bedrooms and two family bath/shower rooms.

Further accommodation is provided in a pretty, two-bedroom stone cottage and a two-storey, converted barn. Outbuildings include stores, a wine cellar and a stable yard with four boxes.

Green Close is on the market via Savills for £3.8m – see more details and pictures.

A picture-perfect cottage in the Cotswolds for the price of a flat in the suburbs

Time to get out of London? A perfect example English country cottage is on the market in the heart of…

A romantic cottage in the heart of the Cotswolds at the price of a small city flat

A heart-stoppingly romantic cottage in the Cotswolds has come to the market at a price which will make city dwellers…

Cobthorne: A home that stands out for its grace, even in the beautiful town of Oundle

This striking town house in Oundle serves as home to the headmaster of the town's famous school.

Cross Hill House stands in almost six acres and includes two Victorian walled gardens.

A striking, edge-of-village house, the beautiful Grade II*-listed Cross Hill House at Adderbury is a fascinating house which sits in almost six acres of formal and informal gardens and grounds, including two Victorian walled gardens.

This Oxfordshire house – just over three miles from Banbury and 18 miles from Oxford – is for sale via Knight Frank at £4.25m.

The house was feature in Country Life on January 14, 1949, being described as as ‘an early double-fronted stone house to which has been applied a three-storeyed Georgian façade, terminating in great solid pilasters’.

Its Historic England listing refers to a large, mid-18th-century house in the mid-Georgian style, probably incorporating earlier features, built of ‘marlstone ashlar’ under a Welsh slate roof and altered in the early 19th century.

In terms both of its village status and the proportions of its principal rooms, this is a big house in every sense, with a total of 9,127sq ft of internal space, including the converted three-bedroom coach house, which is accessible both from its own ground-floor level and from the first floor of the main house.

The accommodation is laid out on three floors and little altered since it was bought by the present owner 50 years ago, is also extremely generous, comprising three large reception rooms. The basement provides another 1,452sq ft of cellars, currently arranged as four rooms.

The sitting room is a particularly delightful space which opens out onto the lawns.

The kitchen is equally striking, a huge area that combines sitting and dining areas in one impressive room. It also has access onto the courtyard and gardens, while adjacent is a utility room and a former butler’s pantry.

Upstairs there is a first-floor study, four bedroom suites, three further bedrooms and two family bathrooms – the whole lit to the front by rows of full-height south-facing sash windows.

The accommodation, laid out on three floors and little altered since it was bought by the present owner 50 years ago, is also extremely generous, comprising three large reception rooms, a first-floor study, four bedroom suites, three further bedrooms and two family bathrooms – the whole lit to the front by rows of full-height south-facing sash windows.

The house stands in almost six acres of formal and informal gardens and grounds, including two Victorian walled gardens.

Cross Hill House is on the market via Knight Frank at £4.25m – see more details and pictures.

A picture-perfect cottage in the Cotswolds for the price of a flat in the suburbs

Time to get out of London? A perfect example English country cottage is on the market in the heart of…

The Lake House, an ultra-modern masterpiece in a glorious natural setting

Buyers keen to venture beyond the traditional ought to take a look at one of Britain’s most eye-catching Huf Haus…

Mini-break: The Painswick, Gloucestershire

The cream of the Cotswolds.