Owners of these historic properties—on the market for the first time in decades—hope to get a head start.
As the experts keep telling us, what the housing market hates above all else is uncertainty. The year ahead promises that by the shed-load, but at least a few intrepid country-house vendors have taken the bull by the horns and put their properties on the market in January, with a view to finding a buyer before the General Election brings trading to a halt in May.
The sale, for the first time in 55 years, of pretty Rodborough House (Fig 2) on the edge of the popular Thames-side village of Shiplake, Oxfordshire —three miles south of Henley-on-Thames and six miles from the commuter hub of Reading—is a tempting prospect for families thinking of making that critical first move out of London. Savills in Henley (01491 843000) quote a guide price of £1.75 million for the charming four-bedroom house, which, although built in the early 1950s, looks to have been there for centuries.
Fig 2: Pretty Rodborough House at Shiplake, Oxfordshire stands in an acre of gardens and could easily be extended. £1.75m.
‘Rodborough House stands in an acre of well-kept private gardens, with open fields (mostly owned by the Phillimore estate) to the front and rear. Compared with its generally much larger neighbours in Mill Lane, the plot on which it stands is almost too big for this gem of a house, which, being unlisted, could easily be extended, should a new owner feel like embarking on a bit of project. Shiplake has excellent schools and is an easy, 40-minute commute from central London, a journey that will be made even easier by the arrival of Crossrail at Reading and Twyford in 2018,’ comments Stephen Christie-Miller of Savills.
Down in the West Country, Richard Addington of Savills in Exeter (01392 455755) found himself ‘surprisingly and gratifyingly busy’ after only two days back in harness. He was also agreeably surprised at the response to the launch, in the Christmas double issue of Country Life, of Grade II- listed The Priory (Fig 3) at Ash Priors, near Taunton in west Somerset, which brought enquiries from as far afield as Malaysia.
After years of legal wrangling over the ownership of the historic manor house—set in 39 acres of gardens, parkland and paddocks on the edge of a 52-acre nature reserve in view of the Quantock Hills—The Priory, now ‘ripe for renovation’, is for sale, for the first time in 60 years, at a guide price of £1.5m for the whole or £1m for the house with almost six acres of land.
Fig 3: ‘Ripe for renovation’: The Priory in west Somerset is set in 39 acres and is on the market for the first time in 60 years. £1.5m for the whole.
According to its listing, a two-storey arched porch dated 1529 suggests that the manor was part of Taunton Priory before the Dissolution, although the present house is thought to date from the 17th century and was remodelled in about 1830.
It boasts 7,878sq ft of living space on three floors, including three reception rooms, a study, various domestic offices, seven bedrooms, two bathrooms, a first-floor sitting room and kitchen/breakfast room and two attic rooms. A cobbled courtyard behind the house has a range of buildings on either side, including a former coach house, stabling and stores. The property forms the southern boundary of the small village of Ash Priors, with good local shops available in nearby Bishops Lydeard and a wide choice of private and State schools to be found in and around Taunton.
For the past 30 years, tranquil hillside Farm (Fig 4) at Shelsley Beauchamp, which sits in eight acres of sheltered gardens and grounds overlooking Worcestershire’s scenic Teme Valley, has been the treasured family home of its owners, who now want to downsize. having been quietly on and off the market for a couple of years, the Grade II-listed former farm- house has been relaunched on the market by Worcester-based Andrew Grant (01905 734735) and Savills in Telford (01952 239500) at a guide price of £1.75m.
According to Pevsner, the farmhouse was ‘originally a 15th/16th century, timber-framed hall house with a solar cross-wing, the latter mostly rebuilt to a large T-plan with a shaped gable end for John Collins in 1678’. A further extension was added in 1780. The Collins family were important tanners in their day and friends of the Foleys, who built nearby Witley Court.
Fig 4: Tudor elements add an intriguing appeal to Hillside Farm in Worcestershire’s Teme Valley. £1.75m.
Hillside Farm’s present owner has beautifully maintained and upgraded the property over the years, retaining some fine original elements, including an intriguing Tudor panelled staircase. The house has 5,479sq ft of living space on three floors and planning permission and listed-building consent to create a 1,500sq ft, two-storey extension. The present accommodation comprises four reception rooms, a charming farmhouse kitchen, master and guest suites, six further bedrooms and two family bathrooms.
Over in East Anglia, delightful Grade II*-listed Popples Farmhouse (Fig 1), just south of the conservation village of Brettenham, Suffolk, is an immaculate, 15th-century, timber- framed moated farmhouse with ‘all the trimmings, including a heated swimming pool, a tennis court, an annexe, barns, stabling and paddocks,’ say Strutt & Parker (020–7629 7282), who have launched it on the market this week at a guide price of £2.25m.
The house was later extended in a style sympathetic to the original build and has four reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, master and guest suites, four double bedrooms and two bath/shower rooms. It stands in magnificent gardens, grounds and paddocks, some 8.2 acres in all. ‘To complete the ideal family scenario, your children could walk across the fields to old Buckenham hall prep school, so you wouldn’t even have the school run to worry about,’ adds selling agent mark Rimell.
