An iconic castle estate dating back to 1225, Beverston Castle sits in an idyllic location with superb sporting opportunities.

The sale of the prestigious, 693-acre, south Cotswolds estate follows the death last year, at the age of 91, of the late Jane Rook, who, with her husband, the late Maj Laurence Rook, winner of the first European Championship at Badminton in 1953, were stalwarts of the British eventing community and lifelong supporters of the Duke of Beaufort’s Hunt. The hospitality they dispensed at Beverston Castle was legendary, especially during Badminton week, when they welcomed fellow enthusiasts from all around the world.

Crispin Holborow of Savills, who is handling the sale, quotes a guide price of £10 million for the estate, which Maj and Mrs Rook bought in 1959; further land was added in 1992, when parts of Park Farm, Beverston, were sold. The iconic Cotswold estate is being offered as a whole, or in three lots, with Beverston Castle and 422 acres of land on offer at £7.8m.

‘Nowadays, it’s rare to find a house of historical significance with lovely gardens and a substantial amount of excellent farmland in this prestigious part of the Cotswolds,’ comments Mr Holborow.

Writing in Country Life magazine (February 18 and 25, 1944), Christopher Hussey traced the history of Beverston Castle from its construction as a fortified manor house by Maurice de Gaunt in 1225. The castle was extensively remodelled in about 1350 by Thomas, 3rd Lord Berkeley, and again in about 1600, before being battered and burnt in a siege during the Civil Wars. Sometime later, the adjoining house was added, incorporating parts of the old manor.

The castle proper consisted of a rectangle, which was originally surrounded by a defensive moat, with a gatehouse leading to the castle courtyard. The principal medieval buildings comprise the undercroft of a great hall located on the west side of the rectangle, with the late-17th-century dwelling house forming the south side.

In 1291, Beverston passed to Elizabeth, the great-granddaughter of de Gaunt’s nephew and successor, Robert (Berkeley) de Gourney. She married a Welshman, John ap Adam, whose son, Sir Thomas ap Adam, made an unfortunate marriage, his wife being abducted by one Thomas de Gourney, a relation of his mother’s, together with ‘divers of his goods and chattels’.

Ap Adam took his case to law, but eventually, either ruined or disenchanted by the whole sorry business, he sold Beverston to his powerful neighbour, the 3rd Lord Berkeley. Thus Beverston returned to the chief of the Berkeley clan, who, in 1349, having completed the renovation of his mansions of Berkeley and Wotton, set out to ‘re-edify’ Beverston. The main surviving work of this time is the south-west tower, known as Lord Berkeley’s Tower, which he either built or entirely remodelled.

Beverston remained with the Berkeleys until the Elizabethan period, when Sir John Berkeley sold the property to Sir John Poyntz, who sold it to Henry Fleetwood, Master of the Court of Ward and a well-known ‘estate-monger’. He eventually sold it to Sir Michael Hicks, ancestor of the Hicks-Beach family, who owned Beverston until 1842.

The end of Beverston as a castle came in 1644, when a surprise attack by Col Massey, the Parliament commander, led to the surrender of the castle’s garrison. There followed the first of two fires that destroyed much of the building; the second was in 1691, since when the appearance of the house has remained more or less unchanged.

In 1842, Beverston was sold to Robert Holford of Westonbirt and remained as a farm within the Westonbirt estate, which came up for sale in the 1920s. One of the last of the lots to find a buyer, Beverston was acquired by Vice-Admiral the Hon Arthur and Mrs Strutt in 1939, the owners when Hussey described the castle.

Prevented by wartime regulations from carrying out any structural or restoration work to the buildings, they were able, nonetheless, to prolong the dry-stone wall of the moat, thereby lengthening and widening the terrace and opening up the view of the Berkeley tower and the adjoining main house.

Although now only partly habitable, Grade I-listed Beverston Castle and its charming seven-bedroom manor house dominate Beverston village, with its land lying to the north and south, two miles from the picturesque town of Tetbury, within the Cotswolds AONB. The estate has a further four estate cottages, a flat, an estate office, a large stableyard, a delightful walled kitchen garden and extensive lawns and borders. Additional residential properties within the village of Beverston are also available.

Beverston Castle is on the market with Savills at a guide price of £10 million. Click here for more information and pictures. 

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Whichford House would be a beautiful period home in any setting, but its magical five acres of gardens – including an outdoor areana – make it all the more special, as Penny Churchill reports.

Having your own amphitheatre won’t be near the top of the must-have list for many of us when looking for a new home — but probably only because it’s the sort of thing that you’d never even dream of. Yet the Grade II*-listed Whichford House, standing in five acres of gardens and grounds, includes an outdoor amphitheatre to call your own — one which is regularly used for charity events and the Diva Opera.

The rest of the property is equally enticing. This is an outstanding Cotswold country house in Whichford, a Warwickshire village close to the border with Oxfordshire, six miles from Chipping Norton and seven miles from Shipston-on-Stour. It’s currently for sale through Knight Frank’s country department at a guide price of £6m.

Whichford House was bought by the present owners in 2004 and extensively restored, refurbished and redecorated to become the 7,330sq ft property that it is today.

The house offers accommodation on three floors, including reception and staircase halls, three reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, an orangery and a wine cellar.

There are eight bedrooms and five bathrooms, with the bedrooms currently decorated in a traditional style which really accentuates the house’s period features.

The property also comes with a three-bedroom cottage, a coach house with a one-bedroom flat, outbuildings and stables.

The gardens have been twice featured in Country Life (June 1, 1967 and June 9, 2010), and have glorious views of Brailes Hill. They were laid out by James Russell for Rainbird in the 1950s and have been fully restored by the present owners over the past 15 years.

Whichford House was the village rectory until 1954, when the Church of England sold it to the publisher George Rainbird for a reputed £1,400.

Architecturally, the house evolved during the medieval period and in the 17th and 18th centuries. During the Civil War, it was badly damaged by the Roundheads, after the incumbent rector, the Rev James Langston, preached against Cromwell.

The house was repaired in the 17th century and, according to its Historic England listing, further enhanced and enlarged in the 18th century; a stone over the west doorway shows a date of 1662. The Classical Georgian front was begun in the 1740s, but not finally completed until the present owners built the new west wing in 2006.

Whichford House is for sale via Knight Frank at £6m — see more details and pictures.

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Burgate House stands in 16 acres of grounds beautifully designed by Gertrude Jekyll, long-time partner of Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Grade II-listed Burgate House, arguably one of the finest Queen Anne country houses to be found anywhere within the Surrey Hills AONB, is on the market for the first time in more than 40 years.

The agents of Savills’ Guildford office quote a guide price of £6m for the house, which was built on earlier foundations in 1734 by Richard Eliot. His family is believed to have made its money by selling timber from the land around their property to one of the local Italian glassmakers, who owned a furnace in the area in the late 1500s.

Burgate House has only been owned by a handful of families since it was built, including a period when the Batesons rented the property from the Godman family, who owned it for more than 100 years. The original house has been added to over time, including the extension that was created by the Batesons in about 1918.

In the 1950s, the house was sold as part of the 4th Duke of Westminster’s Southern Park Hatch estate; at that time, various Edwardian and older additions were demolished, so future owners can enjoy the possibility of re-creating the building as it once stood. It was also the Batesons who commissioned Gertrude Jekyll to lay out the attractive gardens, which still exist today, albeit adapted for easier maintenance over the years.

Today, Burgate House stands in 16 acres of formal gardens, wildflower meadow and woodland and offers 7,975sq ft of manageable living space on three floors, including three fine reception rooms, a family kitchen, an artist’s studio, an integral double garage, a four-room cellar, eight bedrooms, five bath/shower rooms and a playroom.

There is also a grove of Spanish chestnuts to the north of the house, believed to contain some of the largest-known specimens in Britain, several with a circumference of over 25 feet.

Burgate House is on the market at a guide price of £6m. For more information and pictures, click here. 

Built during the War of the Roses, Ockwells Manor is a perfect timber-framed mansion with a rich history, set in the heart of Berkshire. Knight Frank and Savills want ‘offers over £10 million’

Historic, 15th century Ockwells Manor, near Maidenhead, Berkshire, is a medieval masterpiece once described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘the most refined and most sophisticated timber framed mansion in England’.

It has now come to the market via Knight Frank and Savills, a quite outstanding home which boasts 11,390sq ft of internal living space on two floors, including eight reception rooms and eight bedrooms.

The agents are soliciting offers over £10 million for the immaculate Grade I-listed house, which is set in 42 acres of gardens, paddocks and woodland on the edge of Windsor Forest. It’s just outside Maidenhead, close to Bray with its world-famous restaurants, while being just six miles from Windsor and nine from Henley-on-Thames.

Writing of Ockwells in Country Life back in January 1924, Christopher Hussey described it as ‘the earliest and most complete example of the type of a medium-sized manor house evolved by the Middle Ages in England’.

The manor of Ockwells, or Ockholt as it was originally known, was granted in 1267 to one Richard de Norreys, who held the sinecure office of ‘chief cook’ to Henry III’s queen, Eleanor of Provence.

Nothing quite that old survives today, but plenty of elements of its subsequent medieval grandeur are still to be seen. One of the outstanding features of Ockwells Manor is the Great Hall, with its Gothic roof and rare 15th-century screen, which occupies the centre of the principal range of buildings, between an outer and an inner court.

Of particular note are the 17 magnificent heraldic glass panels that fill the windows on one side of the hall and represent the arms of Sir John Norreys and his friends, many of whom were killed in the Wars of the Roses.

Although Ockwells Manor contains much that tempts the visitor to stand and stare, there is also much to appeal to a family with a taste for active living – on the tennis court, in the swimming pool and on the manicured polo field, which comes with all the stabling and equestrian facilities that any high-goal player would be proud of.

In a nod to the 21st century, away from the main house, a modern, purpose-built building serves as a helicopter or aircraft hangar.

Nothing is known of the manor house that originally existed on the site in the 13th century, although it was probably moated for protection and also constructed of wood.

John Norreys, de Norreys’ descendant, built the present manor during the Wars of the Roses, between 1446 and 1456, although building work wasn’t completed until 1466. Sir John was an astute political operator, who, despite being a proud Lancastrian, managed to retain royal favour by later switching his allegiance to the victorious Yorkists.

Honours he gained under Henry VI included Squire of the Body to the King, Master of the Royal Wardrobe, Sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire in 1442 and 1457 and Squire of the Body to Edward IV, the first Yorkist king, by whom he was knighted.

Following Sir John’s death in 1466, Ockwells passed – via his son, Sir William, and his grandson, Sir Edward – to his great-grandson, Sir Henry Norreys, who was a Groom of the Stool to Henry VIII and a close confidant of the King. However, Henry was later accused of treason and adultery with Anne Boleyn, found guilty and executed in 1536.

Thereafter, Ockwells passed to Sir Edward’s sister, Elizabeth, who brought the manor as her dowry on her marriage to Sir Thomas Fettiplace. The Fettiplaces’ only child, Katharine, married the Catholic Sir Francis Englefield, who represented Berkshire in Parliament and almost certainly lived at Ockwells.

However, when Elizabeth I acceded to the throne in 1558, Englefield went to Spain by Royal Licence and, contrary to that licence, stayed there for the rest of his life.

As a result, his estates, including Ockwells, were confiscated by the Crown, although his wife was allowed to remain as a tenant during her lifetime.

On Katharine’s death, the manor passed to her cousin, Sir John Fettiplace, who surrendered the manor to the Crown for £200 and died the same year. One year later, his son, Besils, leased the estate for 1,000 years at a peppercorn rent to the trustees of William Day, Provost of Eton.

In 1625, Day’s son, also William, sold the manor to Thomas Baldwin, although the Days continued to live in the house as tenants for more than a century. From 1786, Ockwells was owned by the Powneys, a yeoman family from the nearby village of Bray, who sold off the bulk of the estate in 1801.

The house and part of the lands were then bought by Charles Pascoe Grenfell, in whose family it remained until the manor house, by then ‘delapidated and in the condition of a farmhouse’, was bought in the late 1800s by Sir Stephen Leech. According to Hussey, Leech carried out ‘a great deal of excellent structural restoration, notably on the façade’, stripping and repairing the entire timber frame.

The manor was then purchased by one Sir Edward Barry, another enthusiastic antiquarian, who recast the building in its present form in stages, enlarging the dining room, inserting fireplaces and windows and moving the Jacobean staircase to its present position.

Sir Edward devoted several years to furnishing the house with many fine objects, notably tapestries and armour and, when the 575-acre estate was put up for sale in November 1949, following Sir Edward’s death the previous year at the age of 91, his executors insisted that any prospective purchaser of Ockwells should have ‘every opportunity to acquire its contents’.

During their tenure, the present owners enlisted the expertise of Hertfordshire-based Mansfield Thomas and Partners to restore this remarkable house to its present impressive state of preservation, as well as enhancing its undoubted appeal as a beautiful family home.

Ockwells is for sale via Knight Frank and Savills for ‘offers over £10 million’ – see more pictures and details.

Dinmore Manor is a 12th-century property that has evolved over hundreds of years to become one of Britain's most spectacular and beautiful estates. Penny Churchill tells its remarkable story.

The launch onto the open market of the spectacular 1,468-acre Dinmore Manor estate at Hope under Dinmore, near Leominster, north Herefordshire — through Knight Frank and Savills for £28 million — shines a discreet spotlight on one of the west of England’s most secretive and most beautiful residential, sporting and farming estates.

The Manor itself is straight out of a fairytale. Listed Grade II, it stands on high ground in a remote wooded valley, halfway between Hereford and Leo-minster, and was surrounded by the Royal Forest of Marden in the Saxon and early-Norman periods.

The earliest parts of the manor house were built in the late 16th century, but various elements have been added and updated ever since. Interestingly, some of the newest additions to the manor house are the magnificent Cloisters and Music Room, which were added by the Murray family in 1936.

The Dinmore Estate was featured in Country Life in 1985, when Clive Aslet — who went on to edit the magazine — produced a lengthy feature about it. ‘There are three principal reasons to visit Dinmore,’ he wrote at the time. ‘The view, the history of the site as a commandery of the Knights Hospitaller, and the extraordinary cloister and music rooms added in 1932-36.’ Credit: Country Life Picture Library

Although only built in the early 19th century, the south entrance contains much original 14th-century stonework and the grand hall contains an early-Jacobean mantelpiece and panelling of the same period.

Two early-16th-century fireplaces, which came to light during alterations, have been restored to their original condition. The lower buildings to the west of the original house probably date from the early 18th century.

A private driveway of more than a mile leads past a gate lodge through open parkland, across streams and through woodland, before passing through ornate automatic gates to the front of the manor house.

A grand entrance hall leads to a newly created cantilevered staircase and the impressive main reception rooms.

Dinmore’s sitting room

These include an elegant drawing room with an 18th-century veined-marble fireplace from Berkeley Castle, an intimate green panelled sitting room and the main dining room, which stretches along the southern façade of the manor and boasts a fine Georgian fireplace of 1765.

A highlight of the interior is the wonderful Music Room, with its two staircases — one leading to the Cloisters overlooking the garden and a second leading up one of the turrets to a secret sixth bedroom.

Dinmore Manor’s music room.

The first floor houses the sumptuous master suite and four more bedroom suites, with a further suite built into the trusses of the roof on the second floor.

The compact formal gardens were laid out in the 1920s. To the north of the manor, they are predominantly laid to lawn, with formal box hedging and topiary divided by flagstone walkways. The west of the garden is bounded by the exquisite cloisters, in front of which a series of lily ponds cascades down towards the ha-ha at the foot of the garden.

Having purchased Dinmore from the Murray family in 1999, its present owner has ‘left no flagstone unturned’ in restoring and extending the historic manor house, acquiring 600 acres of additional land and two further properties, establishing an award-winning Limousin cattle-breeding unit and setting up a world-class showjumping operation based on the finest European sport-horse bloodlines.

In addition to expertly managed farming and woodland enterprises, it incorporates an exciting high-bird shoot and a portfolio of 19 impeccably renovated estate houses and cottages, the majority of which are let on assured shorthold tenancies.

Kipperknowle Farmhouse and shoot lodge within the estate

The history of the place is fascinating, and stretches back over 800 years. In 1189, Dinmore was inaugurated as a Commandery of the Knights Templar and, following their suppression in 1320, of the Knights Hospitaller. Its role was not only to serve as a training centre for knights engaging in the early Crusades, but also to provide shelter and sanctuary to travellers and pilgrims undertaking the hazardous journey to the Holy Land.

Little remains of the original 12th-century chapel at Dinmore, apart from a few pieces of walling: the rest of the chapel, now listed Grade II*, was rebuilt and slightly enlarged in about 1370. The oak roof and the interior of the chapel have remained practically untouched since then, although the stained-glass windows were painted, from 1884 onwards, by the Rev Harris Fleming St John, who also added the porch.

Over the centuries, the Hospitallers of Dinmore received many gifts of land and goods and, at the Dissolution in 1540, owned lands and Church property in Herefordshire, Shropshire, Gloucestershire, Monmouth-shire and Glamorgan. After 1540, the manor reverted to the Crown and was granted to Sir Thomas Palmer, who unwisely sided with Dudley in backing Lady Jane Grey’s claim to the throne and was tried and beheaded in 1553 by order of Queen Mary.

In 1559, Elizabeth I gave Dinmore to John Wolrych from Shropshire, whose descendants lived there until 1739, when the estate was sold to Richmond Fleming of Sibdon Castle, Shropshire.

The drawing room

The Fleming family, in its various guises, held Dinmore until 1927, when it was sold to Richard Hollins Murray. Murray’s descendants owned it until 1999 when the present owners took it on; now, the estate is looking for a new owner to write the next chapter of its history.

The Dinmore Manor Estate is for sale through Knight Frank and Savills for ‘offers over £28 million’— see more details and pictures.

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Foxcote Manor is the perfect country house – large without being unmanageable, with plenty of grounds and good transport links to the word beyond its walls.

A Grade II-listed, 17th-century manor house with delightful gardens, the late Mark Vestey’s charming Foxcote Manor at Foxcote, in the heart of the Cotswolds is 6½ miles from Cheltenham and 13½ miles from Stow-on-the-Wold.

The agents, Knight Frank, quote a guide price of £8m for the compact, 59-acre estate, with its outstanding equestrian facilities, which include a main 13-box American-barn yard, plus additional stabling, barns, an outdoor school, paddocks and an immaculate, full-size polo ground.

Foxcote Manor and its grounds occupy the south side of a low valley formed by a tributary stream of the River Coln. In the medieval period, the manor was part of the Bishop of Worcester’s Withington estate and, by 1507, had been acquired by the college of Westbury-on-Trym.

After the Dissolution, the Crown sold Foxcote with the college’s other lands to Sir Ralph Sadler, after which it passed through several families until, in 1919, Foxcote Manor farm was acquired by Emma Abell.

In 1973, the Abells, who had added glebe land bought from the rector in 1921 and the former glebe Thorndale Farm in 1932, sold the Foxcote estate to the Hon Mark Vestey, brother of Lord Vestey of Stowell Park. Mr Vestey further enlarged Foxcote with the acquisition of two local farms and parts of Withington Manor farm and, by 1998, owned some 1,000 acres in the parish.

He also extended the manor house, adding a flanking gable wing on the south side of the house to match that on the north side, which had been added by the Abells in about 1920. Other additions included a north bay window, a south loggia and a Classical porch in 1997–98.

Sometime after 1980, when farming operations were centred on Thorndale Farm, Foxcote’s splendid 18th-century barn was cleverly converted into a billiard room, squash court and famous party barn, using windows from a demolished service wing at Stowell Park.

In all, Foxcote Manor offers more than 10,650sq ft of family-friendly living space on three floors and includes three main reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, a garden hall, master and guest suites, five further bedrooms, three further bathrooms and an adjoining two-bedroom annexe.

Foxcote Manor is for sale via Knight Frank at £8m — see more details and pics.

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Bartley Manor has undergone a series of renovations to return it to its former glory, with each owner since the first leaving their own unique stamp on the property. Penny Churchill reports.

Built in the late 18th century with early- and late-20th-century extensions, Grade II-listed Bartley Manor at Bartley, three miles from Lyndhurst, Hampshire, is one of few Georgian manor houses to be found within the bounds of what is now the New Forest National Park.

It was precisely this attribute that attracted the attention of Bartley Manor’s current owners, who were looking for a house in the New Forest when, in 2000, a picture of the manor in a Winchester estate agent’s window caught their eye – and fired their imagination. Having bought the house with its former farm buildings and 30-odd acres of land in a ‘very rundown’ state, they embarked on a major programme of renovations.

Now, with downsizing on the agenda, a rejuvenated Bartley Manor has been launched on the market through Knight Frank at a guide price of £4 million.

A handful of dedicated owners have left their mark on the manor, the longest tenure being that of the Maitlands, a distinguished military family from Devon. From the late 1850s until his death in 1926, the manor was home to Capt Reginald Paynter Maitland of the Royal Artillery, succeeded by his son, also Reginald. Exemplary service as a battery commander with the Royal Horse Artillery during the First World War saw the young officer awarded the DSO and Croix de Guerre and he retired with the rank of Lt-Col in 1932. He died at Bartley Manor in April 1939, aged 57.

Soon afterwards, a footnote in Country Life (August 26, 1939) announced that ‘Bartley Manor, a Georgian house in 48 acres on the fringe of the New Forest three miles from Lyndhurst Road Station, can be bought for £6,500, through Messrs Ralph Pay and Taylor. It is two miles from Bramshaw golf links’.

After the Second World War, Bartley Manor was farmed by the Despard family, whose livestock-and-dairy enterprise appears to have had its heyday in the 1970s. For whatever reason, its fortunes waned thereafter, until the arrival of the present owners reversed the downward spiral.

The 6,975sq ft main house offers flexible living space on three floors. The extensive ground floor comprises four reception rooms, including the impressive drawing room (the former ballroom), with three sets of French doors opening onto the garden terrace. Each reception room opens into a wide hallway to create a superb entertaining space for gatherings of 100 or more.

When not required, these rooms can be closed off and day-to-day living conveniently confined to the sitting room, kitchen, breakfast room and study/playroom.

Upstairs comprises a large principal bedroom suite, with five further bedrooms and three bathrooms; attached to the house is a self-contained two-bedroom flat. The refurbished three-bedroom coach house is currently let on an Assured Shorthold Tenancy and the former milking parlour has been converted to a games room/gym and art studio. With its easy access to miles of riding in the forest, Bartley Manor Farm, comprising a tack room, stables and large hay barn, is now ideally suited to equestrian use.

The gardens and grounds at Bartley Manor, which include nine acres of ancient woodland covered with bluebells in spring, are largely the creation of the current owners, who have laid out an enchanting Japanese garden, with a traditional tea house in a former walled garden.

Bartley Manor is on the market with Knight Frank at a guide price of £4 million. Click here for more information and pictures.

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Selham House is the perfect house for entertaining, with a pool for the summer, large rooms for the winter and a grand entrance hall worthy of Downton Abbey.

Within the much-desired South Downs National Park, imposing Selham House stands in some 15 acres of landscaped gardens and grounds on the edge of Selham village, halfway between Petworth and Midhurst.

Built of the local Ashlar stone in about 1900, Selham House, which is unlisted, has been home to several illustrious owners, including the Cowdray family, whose estate it abuts, and the Maharajah of Bahawalpur, who bought it in 1948. It’s now for sale through Knight Frank at a guide price of £5.5m.

The house, which was previously divided into three, has been reconfigured as one by its current owners, whose home it’s been for the past 33 years.

During that time, they have implemented a thorough programme of restoration and improvement, installing new bathrooms and a new kitchen and erecting a number of outbuildings, including two garage blocks and a swimming-pool pavilion.

A newly one-bedroom refurbished country cottage sits nearby, as well as the three bedroom annexe. These elements, as well as the large size of the house and the extensive grounds make Selham the perfect house for entertaining.

The house now offers more than 17,000sq ft of accommodation, including an impressive reception hall, five main reception rooms, nine bedrooms and eight bathrooms. The first floor is situated around a galleried landing that the residents of Downton Abbey wouldn’t turn their noses up at.

The master bedroom leads off from this landing with its dressing room and ensuite, which in turn can be easily connected to a second bedroom should the new residents require it to.

In addition, the beautifully landscaped gardens have reached a level of maturity that matches the setting of the house on high ground, overlooking a West Sussex landscape of rolling downs, deep valleys and wonderful coastal views.

Selham House is on the market with Knight Frank at a guide price of £5.5 million. For more information and images, click here. 

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In the market for a more tranquil way of life? Look no further than Marazion, one of Cornwall's top seaside locations for beautiful beachside properties, like The Old Manor House, on the market now.

With its spellbinding views of St Michael’s Mount, the ancient Cornish market town of Marazion, 3½ miles west of Penzance, is one of Cornwall’s most sought-after seaside locations, says Richard Speedy of Strutt & Parker’s Exeter office, who is handling the sale of The Old Manor House, which occupies an enviable waterside position in the centre of Britain’s oldest chartered town.

He quotes a guide price of £2.5m for the Grade II*-listed house, built in 1775, which provides more than 9,000sq ft of living space on three floors, surrounded by spacious, beautifully landscaped gardens planted with a variety of flowerbeds and trees, with a large central lawn and a stone terrace – ideal for alfresco dining.

The attractive welcome hall is almost chalet-like, with victorian floor tiles, wall-hugging benches and large wooden arches leading through to the rest of the house. Natural wood is prominent throughout the house – fitted bespoke for storage in the games room and panelled on the walls in the reception room, as well as on the floor in the form of exposed floorboards.

The house has close links to the St Aubyn family, who acquired St Michael’s Mount in the 17th century. In the late 1800s, architect Piers St Aubyn is said to have lived at The Old Manor House, having previously been involved in the restoration of the Mount.

‘Cornwall will always be a favourite for families, and by looking beyond the usual hotspots, you can find some hidden gems such as this,’ points out Mr Speedy. ‘The owner currently uses it as a second home and hosts parties in the summer, but its size also makes it suitable for larger holiday lets.’

The Old Manor House is on the market through Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £2.5 million. For more information and images, please click here or visit www.countrylife.onthemarket.com.

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The breathtaking Hill Place, which was possibly designed by Sir John Soane, can be purchased as a whole estate or simply as a country house with just 20 acres of breathtaking parkland.

Along the M3 spur from Winchester to Portsmouth, a winding country lane leads to the village of Swanmore in Hampshire’s Meon valley, where you’ll find the Grade II-listed Hill Place.

This fine, gracious Georgian country villa was built in about 1800 in the symmetrical, pared-down style of Sir John Soane. It may have been designed by the man itself, although it cannot be definitively attributed to him.

The property was launched onto the market through Knight Frank, at £6.25m for the estate as a whole, including the main house, lodge, cottage, annexe, outbuildings, gardens and productive orchards – some 128 acres in all. Alternatively, a guide price of £4.5m is quoted for the house, lodge and 20 acres of gardens and parkland.

The high ground on which it stands was originally part of the neighbouring Midlington estate, bought by Captain Roger Martin in 1753 with money earned from the capture of two Spanish galleons.

Located within the South Downs National Park, with spectacular southerly views, the house was probably built by Martin’s great-nephew, Richard Goodlad, who moved there in 1801, following his retirement from a post as a senior merchant in the East India Company.

Over time, the estate grew to more than 1,000 acres until, in 1916, it was broken up and sold off. The house, park and model farm changed hands several times over the next few decades, during which time, the annexe on the east side was added.

In 1977, the house and park were bought by the grandfather of Hill Place’s present owner, Will Dobson, who, with his wife, Rebecca, has carried out an extensive restoration programme, installing bathrooms, reinstating the back staircase, redeveloping the garden, restoring the painted ceiling in the morning room and negotiating planning consent to reinstate the mansard roof, thereby creating three further bedrooms and a bathroom.

In all, the house boasts some 10,400sq ft of internal living space, including a spectacular hall with a grand, sweeping staircase, four fine reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, five main bedrooms and a one-bedroom flat.

It was a massive undertaking, which led to the house being featured, in 2011, in a Channel 4 documentary by Ruth Watson, as part of her Country House Rescue series. Since then, the house has been run as an exclusive wedding venue, supported by the income from the adjoining farm’s 100 or so acres of apple and pear orchards.

Having taken the project as far as it can go in its present incarnation, the Dobsons have decided to pass the baton on to the next custodian of Hill Place.

Hill Place is on the market with Knight Frank at a guide price of £6.25m for the estate as a whole or £4.5 for the house, lodge and 20 acres of gardens and parkland. For more information, click here. 

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Best country houses for sale this week

Catch up on the best country houses for sale this week that have come to the market via Country Life.

Furlong House is a dreamily elegant country house in Devon, immaculately finished with a pool, stables and a dozen acres of land.

If rural tranquillity is the dream, buyers need look no further than Grade II-listed Furlong House at Sandy Park, near Chagford in Devon.

This Georgian gem set in 11¾ acres of paddocks and parkland within the Dartmoor National Park; joint agents Jackson-Stops, Savills and Knight Frank are seeking offers in excess of £3m.

The house stands at the head of almost 1,000 acres of National Trust and Woodland Trust land, running down the scenic Teign valley and Fingle Gorge, with uninterrupted views over northern Dartmoor, yet is close to the amenities of Chagford — dubbed the ‘Best rural place to live in Britain’ by The Sunday Times — 1½ miles away.

Furlong House stands at the end of a long, private drive on the edge of the hamlet of Sandy Park, from where a footpath runs up the River Teign to Chagford village. Originally a Devon longhouse until a fire destroyed half of the building at some point in the 18th century, it has been altered and extended to its present form.

The house, which includes four reception rooms, nine bedrooms and three bathrooms, has been completely renovated by the current owners and, according to the agents, ‘now represents a turn-key home of exceptional quality’.

The rooms in the Georgian half at the front are flooded with light from tall sash windows; the original, 16th-century, rear part provides an intimate dining area.

Outside, the property has been the subject of extensive landscaping and building works, including a recently constructed, L-shaped stable yard, a swimming pool and a pool house.

Its earliest known occupants were the Helman family, thought to have been rich yeoman farmers, followed by several generations of Braggs, who lived there between 1700 and 1896 and who must have built the present house in 1840–50.

In 1793, a George Bragg founded the Furlong Harriers, which became the Mid Devon Foxhounds.

Furlong House is for sale at £3m via Knight Frank, Savills and Jackson-Stops – see more details and images.

Best country houses for sale this week

Catch up on the best country houses for sale this week that have come to the market via Country Life.

Curlew Point is a rare beast: a home in the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that offers total privacy for those looking for real waterside retreat.

Curlew Point stands on a private, seven-acre headland, looking south and west across the tranquil, tree-lined waters of the estuary, unseen from all sides except from the river. This irresistibly romantic spot is for sale via West Country agents Marchand Petit, who have launched it on to the market at a guide price of £3.25 million.

One of only a handful of properties in the south Devon AONB with its own direct water access and beach, Curlew Point is completely private, yet close to the amenities of the market town of Kingsbridge. Salcombe, not far away at the mouth of the estuary, is one of the south coast’s most prestigious sailing resorts.

The house, completed in 2009, was designed by local architect Peter Sandover, a yachtsman whose own great escape was an epic voyage across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans in 2014.

As such it’s no great surprise to find that access to the water is excellent: it is down a private slipway, where there are two fixed moorings, plus a running mooring. There’s also a slice of private beach that’s as secluded a spot as you could ever wish for.

House and terraces enjoy the sun from dawn to dusk, with every corner of the light-filled rooms making the most of the spectacular views — the whole set within enclosed gardens, guarded by mature pines and deciduous trees.

The double-height entrance hall is the hub of the house from which all the rooms radiate. The kitchen/dining and sitting rooms have windows on three sides, opening onto wide terraces designed to make the most of the extraordinary location.

Each of the four bedrooms has its own balcony or terrace and the layout of the house includes a separate wing, which can be used as a guest suite or for holiday lets.

Curlew Point is for sale via Marchand Petit at £3.25 million — see more details and pictures.

Penberth Valley just outside Penzance is an idyllic location for those looking to escape to the West Country. Penberth House, with its seven bedrooms and incredible views, is sure to calm even the most-frazzled mind.

Peace and quiet comes with a premium nowadays, and those in the city are willing to pay to price to secure their serenity. Luckily, they needn’t travel to a far-off corner of the world to find it – a train west will do just fine.

Christopher Bailey of Knight Frank’s Exeter office is one of several West Country agents who have noted a new sense of urgency among London buyers, who are going west for privacy, breathing space and a safer way of life. Today’s Country Life sees his firm launch onto the market, at a guide price of £2.65m, the ultimate coastal retreat, Penberth House in Penberth Valley, seven miles south-west of Penzance, which has been in the current owners’ family for more than 100 years.

The house, which dates from the late 19th century with 1930s additions, but is not listed, is approached down a no-through lane, at the bottom of which is Penberth Cove. The cove is now owned by the National Trust, as is much of the surrounding land.

The property offers 8,751sq ft of generous living space, with the two main reception rooms forming its central point. There are two wings either side and a third wing provides three bedrooms and a family bathroom. The granite fireplaces are of particular note and the drawing room, dining room and library all face south towards the sea. Overall, the house has seven good-sized bedrooms, with two more in the attic.

The river cascading over the rocks below the Grade II-listed gatehouse creates an almost mystical setting as it makes its way down through the valley to the cove, its route festooned with camellias and rhododendrons. At this end of the garden is the ruin of an ancient mill mentioned in a 10th-century charter; behind the house, a large area of lawn and woodland leads to a sheltered hard tennis court.

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Steppingstone – a modern house in Cheshire with helipad, pool and football pitch – is truly something else, says Penny Churchill.

Generally speaking, here at Country Life we focus on period homes of great character and beauty. Even when we do look at newer houses, very often they’re built in, say, a traditional Georgian style. We’ve even carried guides on how to add character to brand new homes.

Yet every so often a property comes along which is so striking that it demands our attention, such as this home in Kent or some of the places in this round-up. Today, we luck at just such a home: the futuristic Steppingstone, near Frodsham, which has just come to the market via Strutt & Parker at £3.95 million.

It’s a spectacular, ultra-modern family house in a dramatic setting 10 miles from Chester, sitting on the slopes of wooded Helsby Hill overlooking the Cheshire Plain and the Mersey Estuary.

This sleek, 13,000sq ft building, the brainchild of former rail-freight and logistics tycoon Steve O’Connor.

Due to planning restrictions, a substantial part of Steppingstone lies below ground, yet the ambient light, air quality and rural views are exceptional.

Stepping Stones in Frodsham, Cheshire – the home of Steve and Claire O’Connor

The main entertainment space is a large, open-plan, single room, divided by partitions into different areas, each with its own style; floor-to-ceiling windows fill the space with light and highlight panoramic views.

Below ground, the focal point of the leisure section is a fully equipped sports bar overlooking an open hall used for cricket, badminton and football, parallel to which is a superb indoor swimming pool and gym.

The bedroom accommodation is split between a family area on the first and second floors of the tower and guest accommodation on the lower-ground floor.

The house sits in about two acres of manicured grounds framed by hedges. There’s a five-a-side football pitch, a zip-wire, an alfresco dining area and a hot tub.

As for the roof? Just as you’d probably expect, it doubles as a helicopter landing pad.

Steppingstone is on the market via Strutt & Parker at £3.95 million — see more details and pictures.

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The 17th century Gwysaney Hall is one of the most extraordinary privately-owned homes in Wales, full of history – and while it's in splendid nick today, a couple of of hundred years ago it was terribly neglected as Penny Churchill explains.

The last time that Grade II*-listed Gwysaney Hall and its 1,640-acre estate near Mold, Flintshire, was seen on the open market was in 2009, when the credit crunch put paid to any realistic chance of securing the sale of the estate as a whole.

This time around, owner Richard Davies-Cooke and his family, whose ancestors have owned Gwysaney for more than 450 years, plan to ensure the estate’s long-term future by selling the hall, set in 26 acres of landscaped gardens, grounds, woodland and paddocks. It is for sale at a guide price of £2.75 million through the Chester office of Strutt & Parker.

Few historic Welsh houses can boast a history as rich or as well-documented as that of Gwysaney, which was summed up by Christopher Hussey in Country Life (May 14 and 21, 1943): ‘The story of Gwysaney’s ups and downs — built under James I, battered by the Roundheads, little valued and deserted by the family for 200 years, then repaired, and now a cherished home again — is typical of many an old house.’

Gwysaney Hall stands high on a 600ft plateau overlooking the Dee estuary, with far-reaching views across the estuary and the Wirral peninsula to Liverpool, 17 miles away; on a clear day, you can even see the Cumbrian hills.

It might have been neglected at one point in its history, but for the last couple of hundred years the hall has been cherished by successive generations of the Davies-Cooke family and, today, as it returns to the market for only the second time in its long history, the house has never looked so well.

The front door leads to a fine panelled reception hall, which was part of the original house. A panelled drawing room with a wide, square bay window at one end gives wide-ranging views over the adjoining parkland and beyond.

The fine chimneypiece is believed to have been created using material from the original 16th-century staircase, surmounted by an ornamental overmantle that is believed to have come from the chapel within the original hall.

The everyday reception rooms at the front of the house include a sitting room, with a massive carved stone chimneypiece, part-panelled walls and a window seat, and a study, with an ornate carved chimneypiece, both of which have wonderful views.

The impressive dining room has a fine stone arched recess at one end. Doors from the central corridor lead to a large kitchen/breakfast room, with a beamed arch opening into a secondary kitchen; a stone floor with underfloor heating runs throughout the kitchen and garden room. Such modern touches can be found in many parts of the home, as the bathrooms demonstrate.

Upstairs, the central landing leads to a large bedroom with a date stone of 1603. The master bedroom, accessed through a great oak door, is light and airy, with views of the front park and the Cheshire Plains.

In all, the house offers some 17,000sq ft of interior living space, which comprises three halls, four main reception rooms, two kitchens, 13 bedrooms, four bathrooms, a shower room, a staff flat and four attic rooms.

Included in the sale are two three-bedroom cottages, five stables and an outdoor manège.

The garden, which dates mainly from the 1800s, lies mostly to the north, behind the house, where it merges into a large arboretum developed from 1820 onwards.

The Chapel Garden on the east front includes a former chapel once attached to the hall, with original walls and stone-mullioned windows. There’s also a colourful rose garden, a dramatic water garden, a former walled garden and a kitchen garden.

According to Christopher Hussey’s 1943 articles, the Hall one of several important houses around Mold that were built by Flintshire squires in the Elizabethan period or early in the 17th century.

The present hall is thought to have been built near the site of an earlier, 16th-century house by Robert Davies in 1603. Its original H-shape design is said to be similar to that of the vanished mansion of Llannerch at St Asaph in the nearby Vale of Clwyd, built by Sir Peter Mutton, Chief Justice of Wales, at about the same time as Gwysaney.

In about 1640, Robert Davies married Sir Peter’s elder daughter, Anne, who brought him Llannerch as part of her dowry. Davies celebrated their marriage by installing a new front door at Gwysaney, decorating it with his initials and those of his bride. Five years later, the lower part of it was battered to bits by Sir William Brereton’s Roundheads, forcing its Royalist garrison to surrender.

The damage done to his home by the Parliamentarians was probably the reason why Davies moved to Llannerch and why his son, Mutton, made the elaborate terrace garden there instead of at Gwysaney.

In any event, the old hall remained out of favour throughout the 18th century, which no doubt contributed to its condition in about 1820, when the east wing, which overhung a steep slope and included a chapel, threatened to collapse and was taken down, together with the top storey.

By this time, Gwysaney had passed to the Davies-Cooke family of Owston, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire, but it was only when Philip Bryan Cooke married the daughter of the renowned Sir Tatton Sykes of Sledmere in 1862 that Gwysaney was again considered as a suitable home for the elder son. The reclaimed stone from the rooms that had been pulled down a generation before served to build a new wing on the west side of the house.

Gwysaney Hall is for sale at a guide price of £2.75 million through the Chester office of Strutt & Parker – see more details and pictures.

In an inspired move, the Rev Edgar Bowring built the imposing brick house from scratch, sold it to the church for a hefty sum and then continued to live there himself. Penny Churchill reports.

Victorian entrepreneurs and captains of industry made the towns and villages of the Surrey Hills their own, so it’s hardly surprising that the houses they built reflect solid Victorian values. Such a house is The Old Vicarage in the much sought-after village of Shamley Green, 31⁄2 miles from Cranleigh and five miles from Guildford, which has come to the market through Knight Frank’s Guildford office at a guide price of £3.5m.

You might expect a village vicarage to be a relatively modest affair, but The Old Vicarage is no ordinary clergyman’s residence, nor was Shamley Green’s first vicar, the Rev Edgar Bowring, who built the house in about 1883, an ordinary man of the cloth.

In Victorian times, vicars were expected to come from professional upper-middle-class families, with private means to supplement their clerical earnings. The Rev Bowring was better off than most. Despite losing his mother, Sophia (née Cubitt), when he was three, he was able to take advantage of his family connections, among them his uncle, George Cubitt, the head of the family dynasty, who also happened to be patron of the living.

In 1883, he bought a good-sized plot next to Shamley Green’s new village church from his Cubitt relatives and built the imposing brick house, which he then sold to the Church Commissioners for £3,000, being entitled, as vicar, to live there rent-free, which he did, from 1883 to 1890.

Over time, the economic strains of running a large house on a vicar’s income gradually took their toll and, in 1935, The Old Vicarage was sold as a private residence. Families came and went until the present owners, Robert and Christine Pick, bought The Old Vicarage in September 1984, having spent nine years living and working in Hong Kong and Singapore.

The former vicarage has been the happiest of family homes for them and their three children and their 30-year tenure has been the longest to date for The Old Vicarage, where they have made many useful changes to both the 5,969sq ft, eight-bedroom house and its just over 11⁄2 acres of beautifully maintained gardens.

The Old Vicarage in Surrey is on the market through Knight Frank for £3.5 million. Click here for more information and pictures. 

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The story of east Devon’s grandest country mansion, Grade I-listed Mamhead House, set in 164 acres of glorious gardens and parkland on the slopes of the Haldon Hills north of Dawlish, with glorious views over Exmouth, is essentially one of survival.

Designed by the architect Anthony Salvin, a pupil of Nash and a fervent admirer of Pugin, the vast, 37,437sq ft, late-Georgian mansion was built between 1828 and 1833 for Robert (later Sir Robert) Newman, MP for Exeter – an enormously rich shipping magnate whose forebears were described locally as ‘adventurers’.  Mamhead is now on the market through Strutt & Parker, at a guide price of £10 million.

Inspired by a ground plan proposed by Charles Fowler of Plymouth in 1922, Salvin’s brief was to create a grand mansion in the Tudor style with Classical influences, siting the house to make the most of the spectacular coastal views, while nestling it securely within the surrounding woodland.

This Salvin did brilliantly, combining the grace of the late-Georgian style with the drama and colour of Gothic interiors, the whole executed to the highest standards of craftsmanship and attention to detail. According to Country Life (June 2, 1955), the high standard set at Mamhead ‘contrasts notably in the fine quality of its materials and workmanship with the jerry-built ostentation of much early-19th-century architecture’.

Sir Robert Newman was succeeded in 1848 by his son, Capt Sir Robert Lydston Newman, who was killed at the Battle of Inkerman in November 1854, after which Mamhead passed to his brother, Sir Lydston, whose son, a prominent churchman, was created Lord Mamhead in 1931.

He died unmarried in 1945, leaving the life tenancy of the estate to his brother-in-law, Frederick Lumley, together with the contents of the mansion. On succeeding in 1948, Sir Ralph Newman, a great-grandson of the 1st Baronet, was able to buy back the furnishings, but eventually abandoned the idea of trying to live on the scale imposed by such a house.

Thereafter, Mamhead served a number of institutional roles: an evangelical holiday-and-conference centre in the 1950s, a special school in the 1980s, an events venue and, finally, as the offices of the Forestry Commission, until, in 2013, it was bought by the current owner, an overseas investor with substantial property interests in the UK.

Having considered a number of alternative uses for the estate, which has been carefully maintained throughout his tenure, he has now opted to put Mamhead House back on the market.

It will take a buyer with cash, courage and extraordinary vision to take on this remarkable house and realise its full potential. With its grand reception rooms, wonderful fan-vaulted staircase, vast galleried halls, landings and corridors, extensive domestic offices, 16 main bedrooms, eight bathrooms, 11 attic rooms and romantic camellia house, Mamhead House represents a considerable challenge for any investor, but also an opportunity to preserve and enhance a unique estate that has remained, quite magnificently, untouched by time.

Mamhead House is on the market through Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £10 million. Click here for more information and pictures. 

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From part of an estate to part of the National Trust, Pamphill has been passed from hand to hand since its core was built centuries ago. It's now looking for a new owner to care for it for another 99 years.

Charming, Grade II*-listed Pamphill Manor near Wimborne, Dorset, has evolved over time from a late-17th-/early-18th-century house built around a 16th-century core with a Dutch gabled façade, enlarged in the 18th century with the addition of a Georgian wing overlooking the driveway.

Early-19th-century additions included the coach house and stable block, the annexe and, in the late 1800s, the south-east wing overlooking the croquet lawn – now the sitting room, with the master bedroom above. The house and its impressive grounds are on the market through Savills at a guide price of £2.25 million  for a new 99-year National Trust lease.

Approached along a majestic avenue of mature oaks planted in 1840, Pamphill Manor faces directly onto Pamphill Green, a picturesque hamlet once part of the Kingston Lacy estate, owned by the Bankes family for more than 300 years and bequeathed to the National Trust in 1982.

The present Kingston Lacy House was built by Ralph Bankes between 1663 and 1665 to replace his father’s house, Corfe Castle, which was destroyed in the Civil War. His steward, Matthew Beethell, built Pamphill Manor, which became home to four generations of the Beethell family.

Thereafter, the house remained part of the Kingston Lacy estate and was rented out by the Bankes family and, later, by the National Trust, by which time, it was in a state of disrepair and underwent a major two-year refurbishment in 1992–3, when it was sold by the Trust on a 99-year lease. The present owners, who have lived there since 2005, have continued to maintain and improve the house, which is in excellent order throughout.

Pamphill Manor’s 2.24 acres of beautifully maintained gardens and grounds are an impressive feature of the property. The house offers 8,646sq ft of living space on three floors, including reception and inner halls, four reception rooms, a garden room, a kitchen/breakfast room and six first-floor bedrooms and five bathrooms, with two large attic bedrooms and a playroom/sitting room on the floor above.

Pamphill Manor is on the market through Savills at a guide price of £2.25m for a new 99-year National Trust lease. Click here for more pictures and information.

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Could this historic house galvanise the market into action? Penny Churchill reports.

The recent launch onto the market of several of the UK’s most inspiring country houses and estates has sent a rare thrill of excitement through the ranks of estate agents and buyers alike.

Setting the pace, at a guide price of ‘excess £12 million’ through Knight Frank’s country department, is glorious, Grade I-listed Dewlish House at Dewlish, near Milborne St Andrew, one of Dorset’s most beautiful country houses. It’s being sold – together with its surrounding 296-acre estate – for the first time in 57 years and only the second time since it was built.

The picturesque hamlet of Dewlish is scattered over the western slopes of the valley of the Devil’s Brook in the heart of Dorset’s Hardy Country, 2½ miles from Milborne St Andrew and eight miles from the county town of Dorchester. According to the Rev Hutchins’s seminal history of Dorset, it was here, on the site of a large Roman villa, that Thomas Skinner built Dewlish House in the Queen Anne/Georgian style in about 1702.

The design blends the characteristics of both periods in its main front of Purbeck stone, its south-east end wall of Ham Hill ashlar and its south-west front of brick. The north-west end wall is more modern, having been added since the removal of an 18th- and 19th-century service wing some time in the 20th century.

Skinner died in 1756 and was buried in nearby Winterborne Stickland church, rather than Dewlish’s parish church of All Saints, as he would have preferred. Local legend has it that his ghost has often been seen in Stickland church, where he knocks books off the altar and generally makes his disgruntled presence felt.

The 19th century was the belle époque of the Michel family at Dewlish House.

In The King’s England, Arthur Mee traces the story of several generations of Michels and their descendants: ‘Where the Roman built his house now stands the fine house of the Michels… It stands in the park and has been the home of a line of heroes for two or three generations.

‘Sir John Michel, who was born at Dewlish House in September, 1801 and died there in May, 1886, spent his long life in the army… He served in the Kaffir Wars, was shipwrecked on his way to China after the Crimean War, fought and defeated the mutineers in Bombay, took part in the occupation of Pekin, and became a Field-Marshal.

‘His daughter married Gen Frankfort de Montmorency, who had fought at Sebastopol and had almost won the VC. He was recommended for it but did not receive it. His son Raymond, who died fighting in South Africa, and was known as “the captain who knew no fear”, did receive it.’

Mee adds: ‘They are all remembered in the little church, to which we come by an avenue of yews… we enter through a Norman arch resting on the heads of a king and queen.’

Dewlish remained in Montmorency hands until the early 1960s, by which time the house was in a pitiable state of repair and scheduled for demolition. It had previously been successfully leased to a series of titled owners in the early 1900s, before being commandeered as a base for the first wave of American Marines to arrive in the village in preparation for the D-Day landings.

It was a very different house that emerged after the war, when a series of modest Country Life advertisements offered Dewlish House ‘to let for a term of years at a moderate rent, with immediate possession, containing every accommodation suited to a gentleman’s family or for a private or small preparatory school’.

With no takers for the lease, the house was eventually bought, in 1962, by the late Anthony Boyden, a successful financier, keen yachtsman, and popular joint-master of the South Dorset hunt. It is now being sold on behalf of the family, at £12m for the whole, or ‘excess £9.25m’, for Dewlish House with stabling, six cottages, outbuildings and 134 acres of gardens, grounds, pasture and park-land, much of it planted by the current owners.

Throughout their tenure, the Boydens have restored, improved and lovingly maintained the 12,800sq ft house, which provides gracious accommodation on three floors, including an entrance hall/dining room, five reception rooms, an impressive staircase hall and five first-floor bedroom suites, with five further bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second floor.

The formal gardens, designed by Geoffrey Jellicoe, are particularly beautiful and, to the south of the house, a lake fed by the Devil’s Brook provides a spectacular backdrop for the imposing stone building and a quiet haven for all manner of wildlife.

Dewlish House is on the market through Knight Frank for offers over £12 million. Click here for more information and details. 

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Worlingham Hall fought off damp and dry rot to become an exceptional Grade-I listed Georgian country home. Penny Churchill reports.

In 1962, the 4th Viscount Colville, later a senior member of Her Majesty’s judiciary, but then a young man in his twenties, was contemplating the restoration of the dilapidated Worlingham Hall, near Beccles, Suffolk, which was home at the time to a deadly combination of damp, dry rot and death-watch beetle.

It’s now on the market, with George Bramley of Knight Frank quoting a guide price of ‘excess £5.5m’ for the estate as a whole or ‘excess £2.9m’ for the hall.

He was still restoring the Grade I-listed building, when, in 1994, he decided to sell, his son having declined to take it on. The house, completed in about 1800 by Robert Sparrow, a local squire and magistrate – and a thoroughly disagreeable character, by all accounts – was offered with 20-odd acres of parkland at £800,000, the rest of the original park being held by other owners.

The classic Georgian property was built on the site of a much smaller house by architect Francis Sandys, who also designed Ickworth House, now owned by the National Trust. His design appears to incorporate elements that are curiously reminiscent of the work of Sir John Soane – notably in the unusual octagonal staircase, the splendidly proportioned drawing room and the panelled oval-shaped library. Soane had, in fact, previously supplied Sparrow with a comprehensive set of drawings which, it is claimed, were never used.

The hall was eventually bought, in the late 1990s, by a couple who embarked on a major renovation before selling, three years later, to Richard and Fiona Nourse. Their most significant achievement was the purchase of the surrounding parkland, which saw the house reinstated in its original 100-acre setting when they, in turn, came to sell in 2010.

The rehabilitation of Worlingham Hall from crumbling ruin to modern masterpiece was completed when its current owner bought the neighbouring 340-odd acres – comprising a 30-acre lake, 38 acres of marshes and woodland and a further 78-acre conservation area of woods and wetland – to create a 448-acre conservation and sporting estate, with an exceptional Grade I-listed Georgian house at its heart.

The hall boasts 19,190sq ft of living space, including five reception rooms, five bedroom suites, three further bedrooms, two bathrooms, a staff flat and attics, plus a stable courtyard, cottages and outbuildings – the whole being set in some 78 acres of gardens, park and woodland.

Worlingham Hall is on the market with Knight Frank at  a guide price of ‘excess £5.5m’ for the estate as a whole or ‘excess £2.9m’ for the hall. Click here for more information and details. 

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