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A magnificent period property with a boathouse, tennis court and its own private cinema

January 9, 2019, 3:00 am
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Hay Carr, a truly superb 18th century country house, promises peaceful isolation among every comfort one could desire including a stunning library, a pond and an outstanding orangery, all set in 54 acres of formal gardens.

Knight Frank

On the edge of the Forest of Bowland AONB – a rugged upland area of gritstone fells and vast tracts of heather-covered moorland – immaculate Hay Carr, in 54 acres of formal gardens, parkland, paddocks and woodland near the hamlet of Bay Horse, six miles from Lancaster, offers grandeur, comfort and splendid isolation in equal measure.

Last seen on the market in 2014, the imposing stone house, impressively reconfigured and extended by its previous owner, is now for sale through Strutt & Parker and Knight Frank at a guide price of £3.95 million.

Once part of a large estate that included most of the surrounding farmland, the main house was reputedly built in 1750 by the agricultural pioneer Thomas Lamb and extended by William Lamb in about 1850.

Subsequent owners of Hay Carr include the Sandeman family of Port and sherry fame and Lt-Col Michael Birtwistle of the 7th Gurkha Rifles, later High Sheriff of Lancashire, who bought the house in the 1950s for about £5,000.

From 1997 to 2014, Hay Carr was the family home of businessman Martin Higginson, who not only renovated the house, but also bought in additional land, the original gate lodge and a cottage alongside the Lancaster Canal, which runs through the grounds.

Its long drive meanders through mature parkland, passing over the canal via a charming, Grade II-listed bridge (Hay Carr itself is unlisted) before arriving at a gravel turning circle in front of the house, where the front porch opens into a grand reception hall, with a limestone fireplace and a solid-oak floor.

The hall leads through to the south-facing drawing room, a snug and a beautifully proportioned dining room with a deep bay window. From there, a library linked by a glazed walkway to the main library leads to a magnificent palm house, whose multiple French windows give access to outer terraces and the walled rose garden.

The kitchen/breakfast room is a designer’s dream, with cabinetry by Edwin Loxley of Nottingham, and a splendid cantilevered staircase leads to a sumptuous master suite, four further bedrooms and four bath/shower rooms on the first floor, with a cinema room on the second floor.

The professionally landscaped gardens and grounds include a pristine stableyard built next to a beautifully laid out kitchen garden and, beyond it, an all-weather tennis court. Sleek white estate fencing forms the boundary with the paddocks and parkland, where a cross-country circuit provides a test of equestrian expertise; a lake and boathouse within the parkland allow for lazy afternoons on the water.

Despite its enviably private and peaceful location, this rural idyll remains closely connected to the outside world, thanks to the nearby M6 motorway, which provides easy access south to Preston and Manchester and north to Lancaster, the Lake District and Scotland.

Hay Carr is on the market with Strutt & Parker and Knight Frank at a guide price of £3.95 million. Click here for more information and pictures.

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A nine-acre estate with plenty of room for improvement, wonderfully secluded in the north of England

January 10, 2019, 3:00 am
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Old Ridley Hall is a Grade II-listed country house, under 20 miles from the busy Newcastle-upon-Tyne, yet firmly ensconced in its own rural privacy. Penny Churchill reports.

Old Ridley Hall

In Northumberland, where the call of the wild is as powerful as ever, Sam Gibson of Strutt & Parker’s Morpeth office seeks ‘offers over £950,000’ for Grade II-listed Old Ridley Hall in the affluent village of Stocksfield, 11 miles from Hexham and 19½ miles from busy Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

For sale following the death last year of its long-term owner, Josephine Aldridge, the popular former master and lifelong supporter of the Braes of Derwent Hunt, the origins of Old Ridley Hall can be traced to the late 17th century, with additions in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

With its many classic architectural features largely untouched by time, the house retains ‘the grandeur of a bygone era’ throughout its 6,380sq ft of living space, which includes a large entrance hall, two fine main reception rooms, a play room, six bedrooms, two bathrooms, four attic rooms and a two-bedroom annexe.

The large kitchen is in desperate need of a little love and care (and not a small amount of paint) as well as a modernisation, but offers new owners the opportunity to put their own stamp on the house in the form of a bespoke eat-in kitchen.

The attic rooms, which provide a further opportunity to create more space or add more bedrooms, are currently being used as storage space. The playroom does not need to stay as such if the new owners have no need of it: it is in the ideal location for a family TV room or an elegant library.

The annexe can function as a separate living space, featuring its own private entrance through a lovely courtyard, or could be incorporated into the main house.

The house stands in nine acres of private, well-maintained gardens, mature woodland and paddocks. The formal garden is partially walled, with striking views west across rolling open countryside.

Old Ridley Hall is on the market with Strutt & Parker, seeking offers over £950,000. Click here for more information and pictures. 

 

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An 578-acre estate within the Lake District National Park, including the Cumbrian retreat of interior designer Robert Kime

January 12, 2019, 7:00 am
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Longsleddale estate provides the opportunity to own one of the most accessible, yet still totally unspoilt estates within the Lake District National Park.

Longlesddale

If total seclusion is your dream, then Savills have the answer in the shape of the Longsleddale estate, a beautifully situated Lakeland property in one of the most accessible yet totally unspoilt dales within the Lake District National Park, five miles north of Kendal, with the M6 less than 15 miles to the east.

The wonderfully picturesque estate, which incorporates two small hydro-electric schemes producing an annual income of some £35,000, lies mainly within a ring fence on the west side of the valley, served only by a no-through road that protects it from encroachment by the annual influx of Lakeland tourists.

The estate, which is being sold in four lots at a guide price of £2.4 million for the whole, comprises Lot 1 at £1.5 million – including the hydro-electric scheme and 576 acres of meadow and pasture land bordering the River Mint, rising through woodland to Dockernook Cragg, a spectacular viewpoint from where the moorland rises to 1,310ft above sea level.

Lot 2, with Docker Nook House, barn and paddock, for sale at a guide of £850,000; and Lots 3 and 4 with 211 acres of sporting rights at a guide price of £50,000, including trout fishing on the Mint and the potential to re-create a mixed family shoot on the moor, where, in the past, up to 100 grouse have been shot and eight deer culled in a season.

At the heart of the estate is Grade II-listed Docker Nook House, a late-17th- or early-18th-century former stone farmhouse with outbuildings under one roof – ‘probably originally a cow-house under a granary’, according to its listing.

Owned by a local farming family from the 18th to the mid 19th century, Docker Nook has been the secret Cumbrian retreat of interior designer Robert Kime, who bought it in 2008 and has since restored it to its authentic rustic state, while adding modern facilities and his own uniquely timeless touch.

Accommodation on two floors includes a kitchen, a dining hall, a snug, a sitting room, a large master bedroom, two double bedrooms and two bathrooms. Next to the house, a traditional stone barn has been transformed into a library, which could be converted to further accommodation, subject to planning consent.

As Will Douglas of Savills explains, ‘given that the sale involves more than one vendor, offers will need to be submitted for each lot individually’. With enquiries already flooding in from near and far, he expects to see a final deal emerging by mid January.

The Longsleddale estate is on the market with Savills for £2.4 million, click here for more information and pictures. 

 

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A beautifully-restored family home with walled garden within ‘the most beautiful space in England’

January 18, 2019, 3:00 am
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Salisbury spent much of last year making headlines around the world, but as the dust has settled normal life has returned – and the property market is up and running again, as demonstrated by De Vaux House appearing on the market.

De Vaux House

In his inimitable Notes from a Small Island, first published in 1995, the British-American author Bill Bryson describes Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire, as ‘the single most beautiful structure in England and the Close around it the most beautiful space’.

Small wonder, then, that over the years, many of the fine historic houses located in and around the Close have been bought and cherished by Anglophile Americans, for whom this tranquil cathedral city typifies all that is best about England, its culture and its people.

One such American is Lloyd Slater, the owner of De Vaux House at 6, St Nicholas Road, Salisbury – currently on the market at £1.5 million – which stands just beyond the southern walls of the 80-acre Close.

One of Salisbury’s oldest residential buildings, Grade II*-listed De Vaux House and its neighbours, No 8, St Nicholas Road and No 9, De Vaux Place, were originally part of the College of De Valle founded by Bishop Giles Bridport in 1261 as a theological institution that flourished there until the Dissolution.

Interestingly, De Vaux House is the second house in St Nicholas Road to be owned by the Slater family, who first moved there from Windsor some 18 years ago.

Now, with their son and daughter both working mainly abroad, Mr Slater and his wife, Elizabeth, have their eye on a third, smaller house in the very same street while Strutt & Parker and Savills attempt to find a buyer for their immaculate, six-bedroom home.

Under normal circumstances, arranging the sale of a beautifully restored family house with a lovely walled garden within the ‘liberty’ of Salisbury Cathedral Close – an ancient statute that gives owners the right to baptism, marriage and burial within its walls and their own key to the gates when closed – would be ‘a stroll in the park’ for any estate agent worth his salt.

However, for the people of Salisbury, the events that began with the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March 4, 2018, have been anything but normal.

Mr Slater explains: ‘Until quite recently, any mention of Salisbury would probably conjure up images of a soaring cathedral and a semi-rural Close surrounded by some of England’s most desirable houses. Then, less than a year ago, the perception of the city hailed in a 2002 Country Life survey for framing “England’s best view” altered dramatically.’

‘However, even before the Skripal affair, Salisbury was in the doldrums,’ he continues. ‘And, although the great set pieces such as the Cathedral and Stonehenge were still attracting visitors, the city was more or less resting on its laurels. Although no one could have anticipated – or welcomed – the events of 2018, their effect hasn’t been entirely negative and Salisbury is changing for the better.’

According to Mr Slater, who’s actively involved in community affairs, central, regional and local government have been galvanised to ensure the city’s recovery. Plans have been announced for a £69 million overhaul of one of its central shopping areas, the historic High Street is due a revamp and a £7 million fund is helping businesses in the short term.

The Dean and Chapter of Salisbury Cathedral have also been doing their bit. Under the leadership of newly installed Dean Nicholas Papadopulos, they launched a hugely successful Festival of Light in the Close throughout Advent, with residents illuminating their landmark houses in a ‘magical’ display.

Inevitably, the events of the past 10 months have had an impact on house prices in the city, Mr Slater says, adding: ‘Although that’s not ideal for local people, it does offer a rare opportunity for those who want the quality of life that only an English cathedral city can offer.

With few bargains to be had in Winchester, St Albans or Bath, Salisbury now represents real value for money. The city is bouncing back from an extraordinary, one-off setback not of its own making and, before long, house prices will, too.’

Coming from someone who, I’m reliably informed, helped to mastermind London’s successful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, this rare insight should not be taken lightly by aspiring residents of Salisbury’s most privileged quarter. Nor is De Vaux House itself likely to disappoint.

Highlights of the 3,519sq ft property, which has been expertly and sympathetically restored behind its elegant 18th-century façade in recent years, include the triple-aspect drawing room, which runs the full depth of the house, a panelled study that, like the drawing room, has original pine flooring and a corner fireplace, a dining room with a carved Jacobean fireplace, a range of built-in bookcases and a wonderful carved medieval door, and a bespoke kitchen/breakfast room with Brazilian-granite work surfaces and integrated Neff appliances.

De Vaux house is for sale at £1.5m – see more details via Strutt & Parker or Savills.

 

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A perfectly-preserved home on an ancient stretch of land in one of the prettiest spots in Wiltshire

January 21, 2019, 3:00 am
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Church House is a beautiful home in rolling countryside not far from Salisbury that has come to the market in superb condition. Penny Churchill reports.

Church House, Alvediston

Stretching between the medieval cathedral city of Salisbury and the pretty Dorset market town of Blandford Forum lies the West Wiltshire AONB. And right at the heart of this picturesque slice of English countryside is Church House, a fine and historic home that has been completely restored by its current owners during their 18-year tenure.

Savills quote a guide price of £1.9m for this Grade II-listed home on the northern edge of the village of Alvediston, located 11 miles south-west of Salisbury within one and a quarter acres. Even the land itself is rich in history: it was owned by the nuns of Wilton Abbey from 955 until the Dissolution, and later by the Earls of Pembroke.

The mellow-stone house offers more than 3,300sq ft of accommodation, including a reception hall/sitting room, a dining room, a kitchen/breakfast room with a larder, a utility/boot room and a wine cellar.

On the first floor there are five large bedrooms, two of which are en-suite.

Away from the main house there are several outbuildings, including a garage, log store and an annexe currently used as an office.

As well as a range of pretty formal and informal areas the gardens also boast a swimming pool and a small paddock, while the whole plot has sweeping views of the surrounding countryside.

Church House, Alvediston

Thanks to the efforts of the current owners, this really is a move-straight-in place, very nicely decorated throughout in a tasteful, fairly neutral style which means that there are no unfortunate spells of ‘exuberant’ interior design to rectify. That, together with the fact that everything from the roof downwards has been repaired or renewed as required, suggests that this will be that rare thing: a lovely country house without any headaches.

Church House is for sale via Savills at £1.9m – see more pictures and details.

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A Georgian townhouse with perhaps the best views in Bath and not a small amount of history

January 23, 2019, 3:00 am
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Surviving a World War II bombing that destroyed half of its crescent, indiscriminate postwar ‘redevelopment’ and 45 years of neglect, Lansdown Place has retained all of its charm and many of its original features. Penny Churchill reports.

Lansdown Place East

For the Romans, it was the genius loci – the protective ‘spirit of a place’ – that gave a building or location its distinctive character; nowhere is this elusive spirit more gracefully captured than in Roman Bath’s grand Georgian crescents and squares, where 12, Lansdown Place East is the latest example of a classic, 18th-century town house to come to the open market.

For sale through Strutt & Parker and Carter Jonas at a guide price of £1.75 million, Grade II-listed 12, Lansdown Place East is one of a landmark curved terrace of 16 houses on the northern slopes of Bath, linked to the Grade I-listed Lansdown Crescent, although designed on a less monumental scale and fronted by a paddock grazed in summer by sheep belonging to a local farmer.

Unlike many of Bath’s most famous houses, which have views either of the city or of the surrounding countryside, Lansdown Place East enjoys wonderful views both to the south over the city and to the north, over nearby villages and rolling open countryside.

Together with Lansdown Place East and its twin, Lansdown Place West, Lansdown Crescent was designed and built between 1789 and 1793 by the architect John Palmer, in partnership with the banker and builder John Lowder and businessman and art connoisseur Charles Spackman, who acted as agent for the supply of building materials.

Throughout its existence, 12, Lansdown Place East appears to have enjoyed the protection of its own genius loci. Not only did the house survive a Second World War bombing raid that destroyed Nos 4 to 9, which were later rebuilt, it also escaped the indiscriminate postwar ‘redevelopment’ suffered by many of Bath’s finest Georgian buildings.

In the 1950s, 12, Lansdown Place East was owned by Michael Briggs, a longstanding chairman of the Bath Preservation Trust, whose wife, Isabel Colegate, wrote numerous novels about life among the English upper classes, including The Shooting Party (1980), The Orlando Trilogy (1984) and Winter Journey (1995).

She shared her husband’s passion for historic buildings and, during their time at 12, Lansdown Place East, renovated its elegant internal space in classic Georgian style, before taking on the even greater challenge of restoring and improving romantic Grade I-listed Midford Castle on the outskirts of the city over a period of some 45 years, between 1961 and 2006.

During roughly the same period, the fortunes of 12, Lansdown Place East apparently took a turn for the worse. According to its current owner, James Whatmore, the house was ‘in poor condition’ when, in 2007, he bought it and embarked on a gradual scheme of improvements, which included a new roof, new hardwood sash windows, three new bathrooms and a new gas-fired central-heating system with two boilers.

Some of the decor from the Briggs era has been retained, but many original features, including fine ceiling cornices, Georgian doors and door locks, have been painstakingly sourced and fitted to compliment the original joinery, stone and wood floors and fireplaces.

The building’s 4,802sq ft of living space is arranged over five floors, with the kitchen and dining room on the ground floor providing access to the pretty rear garden. The first floor houses the drawing room and a bedroom, with four further bedrooms on the second and third floors. The lower-ground floor is a large versatile space, leading to a vault and a wine cellar below.

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The picturesque cottage which escaped demolition to become a beautifully-refurbished family home

January 25, 2019, 3:00 am
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Tree Cottage comes with a charming, wooden garden studio built for his own use by the talented Gilbert Spencer, younger brother of Sir Stanley Spencer. Penny Churchill reports.

Tree Cottage

Even in this utilitarian age, it’s not only grand houses of serious architectural merit that can boast ‘a spirit of place’. Who would have thought that the attempt by a developer to replace a modest timber-framed cottage of late-17th-century origin and its tiny 1930s artist’s studio with four executive houses, in the heart of the popular Berkshire village of Upper Basildon, would have resulted in both cottage and studio being spot-listed Grade II in February 2011, as of national and historic interest?

Thus was prevented the destruction of pretty Tree Cottage and the charming, wooden garden studio built for his own use by the talented Gilbert Spencer, younger brother of Sir Stanley Spencer, who lived and painted there between 1935/36 and 1970.

Spencer normally worked outdoors, but, in winter, would paint from his cottage windows or what he called his ‘little Colt studio’ in the garden. A self-portrait shows him wrapped in a heavy overcoat painting in his studio, of which he says in his autobiography:

‘When I entered it for the first time I hated it so much that I knocked it about, and messed it up to get it more in sympathy with my feelings for painting in odd corners, or bedrooms, indoors. The fact is I am no “studio” artist and never have been.’

Although Phil and Stephanie Kingsland, the current owners of Tree Cottage, never knew Spencer and only succeeded in buying the house when a competitor failed to complete on the deal, the place has a magic all of its own. They’ve recently extended and renovated the property to create a modern, open-plan kitchen/diner, a family room, a large master bedroom with an en-suite bathroom and an extra guest bedroom.

What was once a two-cell timber-frame structure now has, in addition, a music room, study, three further bedrooms and a family bathroom – and, of course, the studio, now their children’s private domain. Sadly, not for long, as the Kingsland family is moving on and Tree Cottage is for sale through the Pangbourne office of Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £1m.

For more information on Tree Cottage, on the market through Strutt & Parker for £1 million, click here. 

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A beautiful former rectory on the market in the Hampshire village that Jane Austen called home

January 26, 2019, 7:00 am
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Chawton is famous as Jane Austen's former Hampshire home – and one of the finest houses in the village has come to the market.

The Dower House, Chawton

There are no prizes for identifying the spirit that pervades the village of Chawton, near the market town of Alton, Hampshire: it is, of course, that of Jane Austen, who lived at Chawton Cottage on the estate of her brother, Edward Austen Knight, during the last eight years of her short life. And at the moment one of the finest homes in the village is up for sale – and it’s a house which Austen herself knew well.

Jane Austen's house in Chawton is now a museum

Jane Austen’s house in Chawton is now a museum

During her time in Chawton, Austen and her family were well acquainted with the incumbent of the rectory, who, according to local historian Jane Hurst, was, for a time, high on her mother’s list of suitable suitors for her daughter – a hope that was never realised.

The rectory was one of the most impressive houses in the village, housing barns, stables, outhouses and gardens. It was acquired in the late 1800s by Montagu Knight, squire of Chawton and Knight’s descendant, for the then dowager and, thereafter, known as The Dower House.

Currently on the market through Savills at a guide price of £1.95m, the Austen connection has produced a steady stream of viewings of this imposing country house, none of which has quite made it over the line, says selling agent Lottie Geaves.

The house has been through several incarnations. It dates originally to around 1450, was extensively ‘modernised’ in 1600, then again in the 1840s, before works in the 1890s gave it the appearance it has today.

That’s not to say that time has since stood still. The home has been handsomely refurbished in the Arts-and-Crafts style over the past few decades, though there are some areas in which it now needs a little updating.

There is a generous 6,848sq ft of accommodation, including three main reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room and a garden hall.

There are six first-floor bedrooms, two bathrooms and an interior annexe split over two floors.

There is also plenty of land: Dower House stands in some seven acres of landscaped gardens, stabling, paddocks and woodland. Given that, and the proximity to London (it’s just over an hour from Waterloo on the train and has decent road links via the A31), this seems as superb opportunity for a family to set up in Hampshire – just as the Austens did over 200 years ago.

The Dower House in Chawton is for sale via Savills – see more images and details.

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The Grade I-listed home to two Devon dynasties, with a 13th century chapel and five acres of breathtaking gardens

January 31, 2019, 3:00 am
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Recorded in the Doomsday book, artefacts found on the property (now in the British Museum) date this estate even earlier, suggesting its origins lie between the 5th and 8th centuries.

Fardel Manor

For the second time in 18 years, Richard Addington of Jackson-Stops in Exeter is handling the sale of Grade I-listed Fardel Manor at Fardel, near Cornwood, on the southern fringes of Dartmoor, 10 miles from Plymouth and 35 miles from Exeter. He quotes a guide price of ‘excess £2m’ for the compact, late-medieval manor house, with its 13th-century chapel and service cottage, set in five acres of glorious gardens and surrounded by the appealing mixed-farming landscape that forms the hinterland to the high moor on the horizon.

Fardel Manor

Recorded in the Domesday Book as a Saxon estate known as Ferdendelle, the discovery in 1860 of the early Christian Fardel Stone (now in the British Museum) suggests that it may even date from some time between the 5th and 8th centuries.

Described by architectural historian Robert Waterhouse as ‘a classic example of the development of the courtyard mansion in medieval and early post-medieval Devon’, Fardel was acquired by marriage in the 14th century by the Raleigh family of Smallridge, east Devon.

Sir Walter Raleigh’s father lived at the house in the early 16th century, after which it passed to Walter’s brother. Raleigh himself is not known to have lived there, although he often visited, and the manor remained in his family until the mid 17th century, when his son sold it to another Devon dynasty, the Hele family.

The oldest parts of the manor house date from the arrival of the Raleighs, with major modifications in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the fine panelled drawing room and the staircase hall were created. Fardel’s high-quality stonework is matched by some equally fine joinery and plasterwork, notably in the complex 17th-century staircase.

In the late 17th to early 18th centuries, the south cross-wing of the house was remodelled in the Queen Anne style with moulded plaster ceilings and panelling. From the later 18th to the mid 20th centuries, the house was adapted for use as a tenanted farm with the addition of new farm buildings.

Fardel was again modified in the early 20th century, when much of the roof was rebuilt. The plainly vaulted library/dining room, now overlooked by a gallery, is actually a mid-20th-century reconstruction of five rooms and makes a worthy addition to the other fine rooms, notably the screens room (the former medieval hall) and the study.

The house has been well maintained in recent years, with renovations – including the restoration of the 13th-century chapel – carried out by the present custodians. Modern conveniences include a fitted kitchen, central heating and bathrooms cleverly adapted into the ancient structure.

Although described as ‘compact’ in the sales particulars, having only four bedrooms, the manor’s 6,980sq ft of living space allows plenty of room to manoeuvre within its historic walls.

Ample breathing space abounds in Fardel’s ancient courtyards and many garden rooms, not to mention the very modern swimming pool, from which the balmy South Hams climate can be enjoyed all year round.

Fardel Manor is on the market with Jackson-Stops for offers over £2 million. Click here for more information and pictures. 

 

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An unadorned farmhouse in rural Devon whose simplistic exterior conceals the rare splendour within

February 1, 2019, 3:00 am
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Rashleigh Barton's unique plasterwork, called the 'modern glory' of the property, has delighted everyone from Roger White to Oliver Cromwell. Penny Churchill reports.

Rashleigh Barton

Appearances can be deceptive, and nowhere more so than in rural Devon, where the unadorned walls of a former farmhouse often hide a historic interior of rare richness and splendour.

Such a house is secluded, Grade II*-listed Rashleigh Barton, which sits in some 33 acres of formal gardens, woodland and pasture, three miles from the mid-Devon market town of Chulmleigh, and is for sale through Knight Frank at a guide price of £1.95 million.

Rashleigh Barton was owned by the Rashleigh family of Barnstaple from the late 12th century until 1530, when the Rashleigh heiress, Ibbot, married Thomas Clotworthy, scion of an old Devon family from Clotworthy, near South Molton.

According to an article in Country Life (August 28, 1915), it was he who built the present house – originally, a long, low, late-medieval house of cob in the traditional Devon style, with a central, double-height hall, which was later floored over to create new domestic rooms in the roof space and to link the first-floor chambers at the two ends of the house.

According to architectural historian Roger White (Country Life, March 15, 2017), it’s hard to tell how the inside of the house would have looked in Tudor times, because, in the 1630s, during John Clotworthy’s tenure, ‘its interiors were reordered and overlaid by the sumptuous plasterwork that is the modern glory of Rashleigh Barton’. The richest and most original of the ceilings is in the former great chamber on the first floor – now, the guest bedroom – where Oliver Cromwell is reputed to have slept.

Clotworthy died in 1682, leaving two daughters as co-heiresses, the younger of which, Mary, married Lewis Tremayne of Heligan in Cornwall, thereby conveying Rashleigh Barton to the Tremayne family. Thereafter, the house became a tenanted farmhouse, which was badly neglected until the family sold it in 1975.

Since then, successive owners have gradually restored the property, notably Lord and Lady O’Hagan, who reportedly spent £1 million on renovating it between 1987 and 1988.

Current owners Russell and Alison Mabon, who moved there in 2006 from the Cotswolds with their twin boys, then aged eight, have carried on the good work, transforming Rashleigh Barton into a comfortable, stylish and manageable family home. They have also installed a wood-chip boiler, which not only covers the cost of heating the 8,168sq ft house, but also provides additional income.

The main reception rooms are located at the front of the house; the dining room, with its vast stone fireplace, is particularly impressive, as is the drawing room, which, like the other principal rooms, boasts some exquisite ceiling plasterwork.

A rear hall links to the snug and library added in the 19th century and the main staircase, which includes a fine original dog-gate, leads to the galleried first-floor landing and five principal bedrooms.

Rashleigh Barton stands at the end of a long drive, with spectacular views over its own land in a wonderfully unspoilt area of mid Devon, where the nearby River Taw famously inspired Henry Williamson’s classic novels Tarka the Otter and Salar the Salmon.

The Mabon family have loved their time there and, now that the twins have gone off to university, Russell and Alison are ready to embark on their next major project: a long-held ‘grand design’ to build an ultra-modern, eco-friendly house around a steel-framed barn on a ‘perfect’ site, which they have already secured nearby.

Rashleigh Barton is on the market with Knight Frank at a guide price of £1.95 million. Click here for more information and pictures. 

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A perfect former rectory with sweeping driveway, gabled front and five acres of gardens and meadows

February 6, 2019, 3:00 am
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After two years' hard work getting the place just right, the owners of this majestic old rectory in Buckinghamshire have been forced to move on – but their loss will be the new buyer's gain, as Penny Churchill explains.

Old Rectory Cuddington Drawing room

These days, any young couple lucky enough to buy a former rectory or old vicarage as their ‘forever’ family home can expect to enjoy it for at least 20 years before needing to downsize. The really lucky ones can expect to live there for the rest of their lives.

Sometimes, however, things don’t quite work out that way.

This the owners of The Old Rectory, Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, discovered when they bought their dream home two years ago and immediately embarked on a total refurbishment of the house and grounds.

No sooner had the work been completed than they found themselves obliged to move back closer to London, hence last month’s launch onto the market of their pristine house, gardens and grounds, through Knight Frank, at a guide price of £2.95 million.

Old Rectory Cuddington

Set behind electric gates and approached along a sweeping gravel driveway, this grand, three-storey, gabled building stands on high ground within the picturesque Vale of Aylesbury, surrounded by almost five acres of gardens, grounds and wildflower meadow established by the previous long-term owners.

Old Rectory Cuddington

The present owners have upgraded the gardens and totally transformed the interior – now, a symphony in cool pastels and white – as well as restoring period features to the minutest detail and updating heating, lighting and electrical systems to the most exacting of contemporary standards. Unlike the owners of other former rectories, who prefer to restore as they go, the next custodians of this Victorian gem will only ever need to flick a switch or two.

The main house offers some 5,800sq ft of living space on three floors, including a spacious entrance hall, a sitting room and an elegant drawing room, with ornate coving and a bay window overlooking the garden, as well as a garden room with underfloor heating, a stylish dining room and a well-fitted kitchen/breakfast room.

The first floor houses the master suite and three double bedrooms, each with its own bath or shower room, with a split-level fifth bedroom that has its own bathroom and seating area on the second floor.

The former hayloft has been converted to four garage bays, with a comfortable, one-bedroom guest or staff apartment on the floor above.

The gardens – a well-established mix of mature flowerbeds, fine specimen trees and manicured lawns, with a striking ‘canal’ water feature and a tennis court – have been thoughtfully designed to make the most of the panoramic views over the surrounding countryside and were a popular venue for charity events under the previous owners.

Historically the chapel of Cuddington – a small rural parish bounded to the north by the River Thame and to the south by its tributary the Dad Brook – was held by the Priory of St Andrew, Rochester, until its dissolution in 1540. Subsequently, the living of the vicarage of Cuddington, with that of nearby Haddenham, was granted by Henry VIII to the Dean and Chapter of Rochester.

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The present former rectory, which is unlisted, was built in 1857 on land to the east of the village. It was owned by the Church until 1972, serving as the vicarage for the 12th-century Church of St Nicholas which stands at the western end of the village and was more or less rebuilt in 1857.

The Old Rectory, Cuddington, is for sale via Knight Frank at £2.95 million – see more details and pictures.

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A rural idyll close to the coast with 11 acres of gardens, yet still within commutable range of the City

February 7, 2019, 3:45 am
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A former pillar of the community lived in this delightful house in Essex, commutable to London despite being a place filled with charm and beauty.

The Old Rectory at Tendring, Essex

In days gone by, the village rectory was a bastion of traditional values, whose owners, although not necessarily men of the cloth, would have been closely involved with local affairs of church and village.

Just such a ‘gentleman of the old school’ was Julian Stanford, the late owner of The Old Rectory at Tendring, Essex, who, during his 35-year tenure of the classic Regency house, combined the duties of village church warden with a successful business career in the City. Following his death in December 2017, his much-loved family home was launched on the market last year through the Ipswich office of Jackson-Stops and Savills in Chelmsford at a guide price of £1.5m – a figure recently reduced to £1.25m.

The elegant former rectory, built of painted-brick elevations under a slate roof, stands in 11 acres of formal and kitchen gardens, meadows and woodland in the centre of the village, screened from the street by a splendid holly hedge and a part-rendered brick wall with trees and a hedge behind.

The house offers 4,723sq ft of living space, with a reception hall, three main reception rooms, a kitchen with an adjoining breakfast room, six bedrooms and three bathrooms.

It also comes with a former gardener’s cottage, currently fitted out as a library – ‘all perfectly liveable, although in need of updating,’ says Tim Dansie of Jackson-Stops.

An ornate rose garden lies to the east of the house, with lawn to the south and west and a brick-faced ha-ha and meadowland beyond – the whole surrounded by mature specimen trees.

The lawn slopes down to a pond and, beyond that, to an ornamental lily garden, vegetable garden and on to the stables, paddock and meadowland. To the east of the rear driveway are allotments, rented to villagers under a longstanding arrangement, and a further field for grazing.

Tendring itself is roughly half-way between Colchester and Harwich, a few miles inland from Clacton-on-Sea, and close to the Dedham Valley AONB.

The Old Rectory at Tendring is for sale via Jackson-Stops and Savills at £1.25 million – see more pictures and details.

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An incredible Chelsea studio apartment on a street made famous by the artists of the early 20th century

February 22, 2019, 3:00 am
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Joseph McNeill Whistler, Mrs Anna Lea Merritt and the Colliers all lived on this prestigious street and the surprisingly unlisted No. 50 provides the perfect blank canvas for a creative family's dreams.

Tite Street interior high res_268884441_435274871

In the 60 years leading up to the First World War, the rise of professionalism among artists saw a burgeoning demand for large and luxuriously fitted studio houses within areas of London close to the West End and the haunts of the wealthy picture-buying public. And one such home is on the market now: 50 Tite Street, for sale through Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £9.85 million,

Picturesque Chelsea already had its fair share of resident artists who were attracted to the area by its charm and cheapness compared with more fashionable areas of central London, but it wasn’t until the late 1870s, when sites along the newly created Chelsea Embankment and Tite Street became available, that the majority of studio-houses – their styles as distinctive as their occupants – were built.

The riverfront houses were way too expensive for most budding artists, but, around the corner in Tite Street, American artist Joseph McNeill Whistler, his friends and fellow aesthetes were creating a fashionable new bohemian quarter all of their own.

For Oscar Wilde, Tite Street was the ‘street of wonderful possibilities’, where, in the early 1880s, he joined his friend, Frank Miles, at No 44 and, in 1884, met Lord Alfred Douglas, resulting in the disastrous liaison that eventually led to his trial and incarceration in Reading Gaol.

No 31 was the studio of the successful American portrait painter John Singer Sargent, who bought it in 1901. The plots opposite, at Nos 50 and 52, were purchased by Mrs Anna Lea Merritt, a widowed American painter, and her friends John and Marion Collier, both professional artists, who commissioned Marion’s brother-in-law Frederick Waller to design a pair of studio-houses in 1881–82.

Mrs Merritt occupied No 50, which she called the The Cottage.

According to her biography from the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, Merritt was born into an affluent Quaker family and received a thorough grounding in politics, the Classics, languages, mathematics and music. Initially a self-taught painter, she later studied anatomy at medical school and, following the family’s move to Europe, took art lessons with various masters in Italy, Germany and France.

In 1870, the family moved to London to escape the Franco-Prussian War. Here, the artist ‘lived by her brush’ under the tutelage of the painter and picture-restorer Henry Merritt, whom she married in April 1877, but tragically lost when he died three months later.

Although Merritt struggled to earn a living in the largely male-dominated world of the Arts, she still achieved international recognition, exhibiting regularly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, at the Royal Academy and at the Paris Salon. Her best-known work remains Love Locked Out, a poignant portrayal of Cupid standing in front of a locked door – a tribute to her lost husband – which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890 and now hangs in Tate Britain.

Merritt never once regretted the move to her Tite Street studio, where, she said, ‘the light and space were just what [I] needed and the benefit was at once evident in my work’.

The same light and space have been no less appreciated by the current owners of 50, Tite Street, whose much-loved family home it has been for the past 36 years. The spectacular, 44ft-wide, double-fronted house – the only double-fronted studio-house in the street and a Chelsea landmark – offers more than 4,770sq ft of lateral living space on three floors, with a reception room, dining room, kitchen/breakfast room and bedroom on the raised ground floor and a charming paved garden beyond.

A wide staircase leads to the first floor, the huge, high-ceilinged, studio drawing room and the master bedroom, which is complemented by a large en-suite bathroom with a view of the garden. The lower-ground floor – the domain of the owners’ two sons – comprises a reception room/snug and three further bedrooms and bathrooms.

Now that their boys are grown up, the owners have opted to downsize in London and upsize in the country, reveals Edward Thomson of Strutt & Parker, adding that this unlisted and little altered place ‘offers a blank canvas for a new owner to make it their own.’

50, Tite Street is on the market through Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £9.85 million. Click here for more images and information. 

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A purpose-built art studio in the middle of Kensington, ready to inspire the next generation of London artists

February 25, 2019, 3:00 am
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For centuries creatives have been inspired by the wonders of London and this latest addition to the market, a compact-yet-airy studio, offers one lucky artist the chance to turn Kensington's rooftops into a brand new muse.

Kensington Court Place

Houses of artistic merit, whatever their size, have a perennial appeal for London buyers, provided the location is right. Proof of this is the £1m guide price quoted by Knight Frank for a 740sq ft working artist’s studio on the third floor of 18, Kensington Court Place, W8, at the junction of Court Place and the ever-desirable Thackeray Street, with its eclectic mix of shops and cafes.

The studio retains many period features and offers a unique space that not only stimulates creativity, but also provides adequate living space for a busy artist with his head in the clouds. A small but practical kitchen is tucked out of sight under the stairs and a large upstairs provides the perfect perch to enjoy another view of the city, create a bedroom separate from the main artistic space or view a piece of art from a different perspective.

At around the same time as the likes of Merritt were honing their skills in the nearby Tite Street, 18, Kensington Court Place provided the studio from which the illustrator and portrait painter Claude Allin Shepperson observed and captured for Punch’s readers the world of early-20th-century Kensington, which revolved around the drawing room, the nursery and the leafy green spaces of Kensington Gardens.

The new owner of this airy studio need not look further than the view from their windows for artistic inspiration. Nestled in the heart of Kensington, the wonders of the Natural History Museum, V&A and Hyde Park are quite literally on No. 18’s doorstep. With the large north-west facing window flooding the entire apartment with natural light, it may be hard to tear one’s eyes from the wonders of the outside world to the wonders of the canvas, but we have no doubt the future owner will endeavour to try.

18, Kensington Court Place is on the market through Knight Frank at a guide price of £1 million. Click here for more informations and pictures.

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A quintessential Georgian village house in a village filled with regional character and locally-sourced stone

February 28, 2019, 3:00 am
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In 1815 Adderbury saw the demolishment of the property which once stood where South House stands today. Luckily, the stunning 17th century gateposts were preserved and incorporated into a new house built ten years later, now on the market once more.

South House Alternative main external im_270451471_435276292

A quintessential Georgian village house, with sash windows, high ceilings and flagstone floors, South House, listed Grade II, overlooks the green and is flanked by deep herbaceous borders. It offers more than 3,800sq ft of living space on three floors, including four good reception rooms, five bedrooms, two bathrooms and a modern extension with a kitchen/breakfast room leading to a sun terrace and garden.

During their 16-year tenure, the present owners have rewired the building, updated the kitchen and bathrooms, added fireplaces and generally refurbished the house throughout. Now, following their decision to downsize, South House has come to the market through Knight Frank in Oxford at a guide price of £1.5m.

The ancient parish of Adderbury in Oxfordshire was largely bounded by rivers – the Cherwell was the county boundary with Northamptonshire in the east; to the south, the River Swere was the dividing line with the neighbouring parish of Deddington; and, in a westward direction, the Sor Brook, a tributary of the River Cherwell, separated Adderbury from Bloxham.

A landscape of undulating hill and river valleys, its characteristic red earth was a rich source of good building material: the ubiquitous sandstone and ironstone for which the villages of Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire are famous.

Adderbury’s position on the route through Banbury to the Midlands encouraged its development, yet, despite its growing population and prosperity during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the villages have retained their regional character, thanks to consistent use of local stone and careful restoration and rebuilding in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Today, Adderbury is a linear village, divided into two parts – east and west – of which Adderbury East is the most important. The older part of Adderbury East lies partly on the Oxford-Banbury road, but mainly on a winding branch road running west down the hill to the Sor Brook.

The green at the upper end of the village was where the houses of the rising gentry were built in the Tudor and Stuart periods. In the late 1600s, Celia Fiennes described Adderbury as a pretty village, ‘where there are two or three good houses, one of Sir Thomas Cobb’s, and Lady Rochester’s looks neat and well with good gardens’.

After this, the Cobb family continued to live in Sir Thomas’s house, before it was eventually let and allowed to fall into disrepair. By 1815, the building was a ruin and, according to its listing, was demolished that year, with only the 17th-century gate piers retained as part of a substantial new house, built in 1824.

South House is on the market with Knight Frank at a guide price of £1.5 million. Click here for more information and pictures. 

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A miraculously preserved 16th-century manor house in a quiet backwater on the outskirts of Weymouth

March 2, 2019, 7:00 am
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The Old Manor House survived the decline of Radipole since Roman times to become a beautifully atmospheric family home, complete with over an acre of landscaped gardens.

The Old Manor House - Radipole

In Roman times, the village of Radipole, on the River Wey, was a port of some importance, through which trade flowed to the thriving garrison town of Dorchester, now Dorset’s county town. Over time, the growth of Weymouth as a sailing and tourist centre, allied to changing parish boundaries, reduced Radipole to a quiet backwater on the northern edge of town.

The Old Manor House_ Radipole Lane_ Weym_270451511_435276292

However, the ancient centre of the village, comprising the 12th-century parish church of St Ann, the adjoining 16th-century manor house and the 18th-century schoolhouse, has survived miraculously intact and is now on the market with Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £1.85 million.

Tucked away behind the church and surrounded by trees and a high stone wall, The Old Manor House – the oldest part of which may have started life as a priest’s house or abbey grange – was owned by Cerne Abbey until its dissolution in 1539. A year later, Henry VIII granted the manor to Humphrey Watkins of Holwell, near Sherborne, who passed it to his eldest son, Richard.

He altered and extended the house in about 1580 (possibly to accommodate some or all of his six elder sisters and five younger brothers) and his initials ‘R. W.’ can still be seen above the doorway.

In the 1930s, The Old Manor House was owned by Capt and Mrs Cemmington Leigh, who employed the eminent Dorset architect Ernest Walmsley Lewis to oversee the careful restoration of the manor and its outbuildings over a 10-year period. His trademark attention to detail is evident throughout the house, many original features of which have been carefully preserved by the current owners, who bought it in 1994.

The Old Manor House, listed Grade II*, stands in just over an acre of landscaped gardens and wildflower meadow and offers more than 5,000sq ft of wonderfully atmospheric living space, including three spacious reception rooms.

The dining room boasts its original flagstone floor, exposed beams and open fireplace, as does the triple-aspect snug; the sitting room is another naturally light room with high ceilings, a large open fireplace and a solid oak floor, made from Scottish oak. A large, well-equipped kitchen/breakfast room is well placed at the heart of the ground floor.

A stone spiral staircase leads to the first and second floors and the master bedroom suite, plus five further bedrooms, two family bathrooms and a large office. A one-bedroom annexe adjoining the house provides additional family guest accommodation or the potential for holiday lets.

The Old Manor House is on the market with Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £1.85 million. Click here for more information and pictures. 

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A picture-perfect cottage for sale in a delightful village near the coast in the North York Moors

March 4, 2019, 3:00 am
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Character homes in village locations within national parks are hard to come by – but when they do, they're hard to resist says Penny Churchill.

Pond House in Aislaby

Picture-perfect village houses within the North York Moors National Park as rare as hens’ teeth these days, so the launch onto the market of Grade II*-listed Pond House at Aislaby, three miles from the coast at Whitby, is bound to cause a stir in this delightful part of ‘God’s own country’.

Nick Talbot of Jackson-Stops in York quotes a guide price of ‘offers over £695,000’ for the exquisitely symmetrical, 18th-century house built of ashlar stone from the historic Aislaby Quarry, which supplied blockstones in the 17th and 18th centuries for harbours such as Whitby, Margate and Ramsgate, as well as the Strand Bridge in London.

The house provides some 2,900sq ft of living space in all, including a pleasant entrance hall and two main reception rooms.

There is also a garden room/music room, a light and cheerful breakfast-kitchen, six bedrooms and two bathrooms.

The setting of Pond House makes it an oasis of tranquillity. Its walled front garden with south-facing aspect offers a high degree of privacy, with another large garden to the rear leading off into fields to the rear.

According to its current owner, Rita Fuller, who, with her late husband, bought Pond House in a fairly neglected state in 1980, the property has a history as colourful in its way as the garden they created there during their 38-year tenure.

The house is believed to have been built between 1782 and 1789, probably by one Francis Breckon, who subsequently rented it to a Miss Rebecca Boulby. At some point, Rebecca’s daughter Ann had a liaison with Breckon’s son, John, and subsequently gave birth to three illegitimate daughters, who, years later, embarked on a lengthy court case.

Their claim to ownership of Pond House was successful, due to the fact that their mother hadn’t received a penny of maintenance from their father throughout their 20-year relationship.

Other colourful occupants include two unmarried lady cousins of Sir John Harrowing, who owned Pond House in the 1920s. The ladies had a manservant called Kit, who lived on the top floor of the house and was known to enjoy the occasional tipple.

One day, having somewhat over-indulged, he fell through the bannisters down to the ground floor, but, luckily, was able to pick himself up and stagger off unharmed, much to the relief of his employers, who thought he’d probably been killed.

Pond House is for sale via Jackson-Stops at £695,00 – see more pictures and details.

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A grand Victorian home between Guildford and Dorking, full of delightful 19th century touches

March 7, 2019, 3:00 am
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The Croft occupies an idyllic plot in the North Downs, with space, seclusion and just enough room to roam.

The Croft - Gomshall, Surrey

Victorian values underpin the appeal of The Croft in the historic village of Gomshall at the foot of the North Downs, roughly halfway between Dorking and Guildford, within the spectacular Surrey Hills AONB. Built by City stockbroker Charles Waithman in 1889 at a cost of £3,000, it’s now for sale through Savills at a guide price of £3.85m.

The Croft has remained largely unaltered since then – at least in spirit – apart from a period during the Second World War, when it was home to a small London prep school, and later, when it served for a time as a residential care facility.

For the Victorians, the family home was the base on which the British Empire was built and everything about a Victorian house projects an image of grandeur, strength and stability. The present owners of The Croft have clearly bought into the the era’s ideals of tradition and continuity, retaining its essential 19th-century characteristics, as well as maintaining and upgrading it for 21st-century family living.

The house offers some 9,800sq ft of impressive living space on three floors, starting with a grand reception hall showcasing a magnificent staircase lit by a large stained-glass window – a device much beloved of Victorian and Edwardian architects. Three principal reception rooms offer bright and easy living space and access to the terrace and gardens.

However, the real surprise lies beneath the terrace, where the owners have cleverly installed a luxurious leisure area and indoor swimming-pool complex, with full-width glass doors opening onto a sunny lower terrace leading up to the gardens.

The first and second floors are equally grand, the focal point being the light and airy master suite with its massive dressing room and roof terrace. Six further bedrooms and two bathrooms, plus an office and a home cinema, complete the upper floors, with most rooms enjoying lovely views of the grounds and the surrounding countryside.

The Croft occupies a delightfully secluded position at the top of a semi-rural country lane, surrounded by its 3½ acres of gardens and grounds – the perfect acreage for a busy commuter who prefers not to spend every weekend hoeing and weeding.

That said, there is scope for the green-fingered: a spur off the drive leads to a well-laid-out and productive kitchen garden. Meanwhile, to the west and south of the house, the remaining grounds are mostly laid to lawn on two levels, one of which is set up for croquet.

The Croft is for sale via Savills at £3.85m – see more pictures and details.

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Inside the Hollywood A-lister's mansion which has come up for sale in Surrey

March 9, 2019, 7:00 am
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The word 'legend' is bandied around all too frequently these days, but the man selling this home in the Surrey Hills really is a bona fide national treasure. Penny Churchill takes a look.

Michael Caine's Surry hideaway, Keston Lodge, near Leatherhead

For sale through Strutt & Parker and Grosvenor Billinghurst at a guide price of £3.75m, Keston Lodge near Leatherhead has been the no-frills rural retreat of one of Britain’s best-loved actors for the past 20 years.

We won’t say who. But it’s telling that this Oscar-winning icon chose a corner of his native England rather than, say, an Italian Job as his hideaway when he’s not working in Hollywood. We’re also perhaps a touch surprised that he didn’t Get Carter Jonas in as one of the co-agents, but it seems that they don’t have branch nearby – and not a lot of people know that.

Reputedly chosen by its down-to-earth owners for the privacy and tranquillity of its position on high ground a mile and a half outside the town, which offers wonderful views of the glorious Surrey Hills and 12,842sq ft lodge offers the choice of an easy-going country lifestyle in its present incarnation, or the chance to create something altogether new and exciting.

A house with its own cinema? The Man Who Would Be King of this property will appreciate that. (Pic: Strutt & Parker)

With 8.1 acres of gardens and grounds to play with and further land available if required, the possibilities are endless. However, what’s not to like about Keston Lodge as it now stands, with its pleasantly haphazard layout of living spaces designed to make the most of the superb views?

Generous accommodation includes three reception/family rooms, a snug, a sophisticated cinema room, a conservatory, a bar, a kitchen/breakfast room, an indoor swimming pool and, most importantly, a master bedroom with two en-suite bedrooms and dressing areas, plus four further bedrooms.

Additional living space includes a two-bedroom staff annexe and a separate guest cottage, also with two bedrooms.

Keston Lodge is for sale through Strutt & Parker and Grosvenor Billinghurst at a guide price of £3.75m – see more pictures and details.

 

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A dream-like village house in the heart of Yetminster's conservation area, with a fairytale garden and separate cottage

March 14, 2019, 4:00 am
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Gable Court sits in one of the prettiest villages in Dorset, and its an ideal family home for anyone wishing to escape to the West Country.

If you’re one of the many Country Life readers who dream of living in a stunning period village house in the West Country, now is the time to nip down the A30 to Sherborne in west Dorset.

Anthony Pears of Jackson-Stops in Sherborne quotes a guide price of £1.5m for Grade II-listed Gable Court, which stands proudly at the heart of Yetminster’s conservation area, its early-17th-century origin confirmed by a date stone of 1601 on the front façade.

Gable Court

Home to the current vendors since 1987, the house exudes a calm serenity throughout its 5,707sq ft of living space, which includes two main reception rooms, a conservatory, a kitchen/breakfast room, a playroom, six bedrooms and three bathrooms, with further accommodation available in a separate two-bedroom cottage.

A large stone mullioned window floods the entrance hall with natural light and the two main reception rooms, with their beamed ceilings, stone windows and beautiful fireplaces showcase the period features of the property.

A house perfect for entertaining, Gable Court sport a sizeable dining room and a playroom for even larger parties, with wide doors which open out into the spectacular garden.

Gable Court’s enchanting private grounds provide a spectacular setting for the house, with stone steps winding through lawned areas to the bottom of the garden, through which a river flows gently, and the many different garden ‘rooms’ offer a variety of places in which adults can sit and dream as children play.

The fairytale bridge stretching over the river makes the garden seem almost magical despite the fact that it sports many practical features, including a wood store, an outside bathroom, barns, storage buildings and a shed – as well as a large garage.

Within the grounds also sits the quaint two-bedroom cottage, offering the chance to be spare guest accommodation, a dedicated nanny flat or even a quiet B&B in the middle of the village’s conservation area.

Gable Court is on the market with Jackson-Stops at a guide price of £1.5 million. For more information and images, please click here. 

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