Country Life Early Property Pages: 22nd June 2022 UK

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1 REF: POD012150760

Near Bath, Wiltshire 8 bedrooms | 7 bathrooms | 5 reception rooms | 7 cottages | Wine cellar | Squash court & gym | 2 barns | Garaging Kitchen garden | Walled garden | Woodland & paddocks | Planning permission for indoor pool | Approximately 125.37 acres

A wonderful and private Grade II listed country house with extensive land and cottages offering an income.

Bradford-on-Avon 3 miles | Bath 5 miles (London Paddington from 75 minutes) | Bristol 16 miles

Guide price £8,950,000 Knight Frank London & Bath bruce.tolmie-thomson@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1070

charlie.taylor@knightfrank.com 01225 685523

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POTTON, BEDFORDSHIRE Guide Price: £1,750,000

7 Bedrooms | 6 Reception Rooms | 4 Bathrooms | C EPC

A modern Neo-Georgian style property set in 4.7 acres of landscaped gardens and woodland. Located in the historic market town of Potton, the house was built in 1988 and extended in 2003 to offer just under 5,500 sq. ft. of living space. The property comes with a timber built fishing lodge and part ownership of a large natural lake.

Michael Graham Bedford Richard Banks 01234 220000 Michael Graham London Bob Bickersteth 0207 839 0888

michaelgraham.co.uk michaelgraham_living

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REF: CHO012264158

Covington, Cambridgeshire

6-9 bedrooms | 3 bathrooms | 3 reception rooms | Garage | Outbuildings | Stable | Garden | Paddock | Approximately 1.38 acres

An attractive Grade II listed village house in a commutable area, in need of modernisation.

Kimbolton 3.8 miles | St Neots 12.3 miles (St Pancras International from 56 minutes) | Huntingdon 15.7 miles

Guide price £1,500,000

Knight Frank London george.bramley@knightfrank.com 020 4579 2919

georgie.veale@knightfrank.com 020 4579 2593

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Sophisticated Rural Idyll Compton, Berkshire Didcot Station: 12 miles (London Paddington from 38 minutes), Oxford: 22 miles A well-appointed country house set in the middle of the Berkshire Downs on the Oxfordshire border, built to a high specification in the style of an early Georgian manor house. 5 reception rooms, 9 bedrooms (9 en suite), drawing room, dining room, study, library, cinema, wine cellar, outdoor kitchen, swimming pool with pool house and jacuzzi, tennis court, guest house, staff annexe, landscaped garden and grounds. Freehold | Council Tax Band = H | EPC = C About 117 acres | Guide £15 million

Ed Sugden Savills London Country Department 020 4579 6358 esugden@savills.com

Liz Mclean Savills Newbury 01635 598 142 liz.mclean@savills.com

savills

savills.co.uk

Hampshire, Crondall

A magnificent six-bedroom barn conversion in an idyllic location with glorious views over adjoining farmland Crondall: 1.5 miles, Farnham: 5.0 miles (London Waterloo from 53 mins), Odiham: 5.4 miles, Guildford: 15 miles, London: 43 miles Drawing room | Sitting room | Playroom | Games room | Office | Dining room | Kitchen/breakfast room Utility | Plant room | Boot room | Cloakroom | Principal bedroom with dressing room and bathroom 4 Further bedrooms (2 ensuite) | Bedroom 6/gym | Family bathroom | 2 Shower rooms Garden | Swimming pool | EPC Rating D About 3 acres

Over 50 offices across England and Scotland, including prime Central London.

Guide Price £3,000,000

Roger Wade

Annabel Blackett

Farnham Office 01252 756 571

Country Department 020 3542 6286

roger.wade@struttandparker.com

annabel.blackett@struttandparker.com

/struttandparker

@struttandparker

struttandparker.com

Spectacular Country Setting Crockham Hill, Kent Oxted Station: 4 miles, Sevenoaks: 6 miles Major portion of Grade II listed Victorian mansion designed by J.M. Brydon. 5 reception rooms, 5 bedrooms (3 en suite), 2 family bathrooms, reception hall, library, study, garden room, pantry, garage, studio/office, garden stores, landscaped gardens and spectacular far reaching southerly views. Freehold | Council Tax Band = H

About 3.7 acres I Guide £2.995 million David Johnston Savills Sevenoaks 01732 608 355 djohnston@savills.com

savills

savills.co.uk

Rare Rural Retreat Souldern, Oxfordshire Bicester Station: 7 miles (London Marylebone from 46 minutes) Former watermill in a rural setting with beautiful gardens. 4 reception rooms, 7 bedrooms (2 en suite), 2 further bath/shower rooms, pantry, utility, garden room, open barn, workshop, single garage, landscaped gardens, orchard and grounds, mill ponds, race and stream.

Freehold | Council Tax Band = H | EPC = F

About 1.3 acres | Guide £2.25 million Lindsay Cuthill Savills London Country Department 020 4579 6063 lcuthill@savills.com

Nick Rudge Savills Banbury 01295 298 179 nrudge@savills.com

savills

savills.co.uk

Spectacular Manor House Water Eaton, Oxfordshire Oxford Parkway: 1.3 miles (London Marylebone from 55 minutes) Historic manor house available to rent for the first time in over 50 years.

4 reception rooms, 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, tennis court, stables/storage, party barn, 2 bedroom annexe and landscaped gardens. Paddock available by separate negotiation.

Available from 08.07.2022 | 12 months minimum tenancy | Council Tax Band = H

Guide £1,375 pw (£5,500 pcm) plus fees may apply Kelly Matthews Savills Summertown Lettings 01865 521 830 kmatthews@savills.com

Rose Marsden-Smedley Savills Summertown Lettings 01865 692 398 rose.marsdensmedley@savills.com

Additional Payments: Deposit £7,615.38 | Holding deposit: £1269.23

savills

savills.co.uk

Georgian Village House Brenchley, Kent Paddock Wood Station: 2 miles (London Cannon Street from 52 minutes) Grade II listed house with delightful walled garden, close to the centre of Brenchley and 7.2 miles to Tunbridge Wells. 2 receptions, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 studies, wine cellar, games room, swimming pool and pool house, 2 bedroom cottage, double garage and an area of natural woodland.

Freehold | Council Tax Band = H

About 1 acre I Guide £2.75 million Will Peppitt Savills London Country Department 07967 555 712 wpettitt@savills.com

Robert Jacobs Savills Tunbridge Wells 01892 346 561 rjacobs@savills.com

savills

savills.co.uk

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3 Blaisdon, Gloucestershire 7 bedrooms | 7 bathrooms | 8 reception rooms | Ballroom & further large entertaining room Leisure wing | Garaging | Extensive outbuildings | Integral 2 bedroom staff flat 1 bedroom cottage | 2 bedroom flat | 3 bedroom gatehouse | Parkland with paddocks & woodland Approximately 86.7 acres

Incredible Grade II* listed Victorian house sitting at the head of a long drive in the middle of its land with stunning views across the Severn Estuary.

Gloucester 10 miles | M5 (J11) 14 Miles | Cheltenham 18 miles | Birmingham 60 miles

Guide price £7,250,000

Knight Frank London & Cheltenham peter.edwards@knightfrank.com 020 4502 8544 nick.chivers@knightfrank.com 01242 806824

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4 REF : CHE01227 7248

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5 Winner of six customer experience awards in 2021

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3 Aswardby, Lincolnshire 7 bedrooms | 6 bathrooms | 5 reception rooms | Large kitchen/orangery | Study | Lake | Woodland 2 bedroom cottage with stables & outbuildings available via separate negotiation | EPC G

An impressive country house set in the Lincolnshire Wolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with about 12.8 acres, a secluded position, and landscaped gardens and parkland.

Spilsby 4.1 miles | Louth 12.8 miles

Guide price £2,250,000

Knight Frank London george.bramley@knightfrank.com 020 4579 2919 georgie.veale@knightfrank.com 020 4579 2593

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4 REF: CHO012182534

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5 Winner of six customer experience awards in 2021

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3 Fifield, Oxfordshire 7 bedrooms | 5 bathrooms | 5 reception rooms | Groom's flat | 2 bedroom guest cottage Modern stable block | Tack room | Feedstore | Manège | Paddocks | Tennis court | Extensive lawns Croquet lawn | Lake | Swimming pool | Walled kitchen garden | Garage | Stores | EPC D

A substantial country house situated in an elevated position with far reaching views over beautiful Cotswold countryside. The property offers equestrian facilities, a swimming pool, cottage and staff flat set in approximately 15 acres.

Kingham Station 5 miles (London Paddington 78 minutes) | Burford 4 miles | Stow-on-the-Wold 7 miles

Offers in excess of £6,500,000 Knight Frank London & Stow-on-the-Wold jamie.robson@knightfrank.com 020 4502 7203 leigh.glazebrook@knightfrank.com 01451 888130

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4 REF: CHO012227194

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Only With Us property showcase

Only With Us All these properties appeared exclusively with us, 24 hours or more before Rightmove or Zoopla.

Ravenstonedale, Cumbria

Holwell, Leicestershire

£675,000

guide price

An attractive barn conversion located within a semi-rural village, with spacious accommodation and countryside views throughout.

Contact: Barnard Castle 01833 314983

£550,000

guide price

Chideock, Dorset

£350,000

guide price

A beautifully presented and extended four bedroom sandstone cottage with pantiled roof, offering extensive accommodation.

Contact: Melton Mowbray 01664 518924

A two bedroom cottage in the heart of Chideock, situated within walking distance of the beach, village store and local pub.

Contact: Bridport office 01308 310962

Capel, Surrey

Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

£1,800,000 guide price

A Grade ll listed farmhouse of significant architectural interest, with several period outbuildings set in approx. 10.8 acres.

Contact: Dorking office 01306 293954

£1,850,000 guide price

A beautiful semi-detached period property arranged over three floors with a delightful enclosed garden and large terrace.

Contact: Henley-on-Thames 01491 738871

Create an alert To view these and the finest selection of premium properties, search OnTheMarket Ingmanthorpe, North Yorkshire

£889,950

offers over

Whimple, Devon

£750,000

offers in excess of

An Edwardian detached family home set amidst a beautiful garden plot of approx. 0.3 acres, located on the outskirts of Wetherby.

A spacious, flexible family home with private, beautifully landscaped gardens on the edge of a popular village.

Contact: Wetherby office 01937 205882

Contact: Exeter office 01392 976719

Verify at www.onthemarket.com/only-with-us/. Agents specify exclusivity.

at CountryLife.co.uk and set up a property alert today.

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Property market

Penny Churchill

Giddy up!

Two spectacular rural estates rich in horse-racing history are on the market for the first time in decades

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Find the best properties at countrylife.co.uk

Left: The dynamic Exning estate is set in 1,776 acres near Newmarket in Suffolk. £50m.

Above: Hodcott House is at the heart of 63-acre West Ilsley Stables in Berkshire. £6.975m

T

HE sale of the prestigious 1,776-acre Exning estate at Exning, two miles north of Newmarket on the Suffolk/ Cambridgeshire border, represents a unique opportunity to acquire, for the first time in more than 100 years, ‘an outstanding multifaceted rural estate’, says Alex Lawson of selling agents Savills (07967 555502), who quotes a guide price of £50 million for the estate as a whole, or in 18 individual lots.

The sale follows the death last year, at the age of 94, of the estate’s sporting owner, Simon Gibson, who was known throughout the area as a passionate supporter of racing and a generous benefactor of innumerable good causes through the charity he established in 1975—among them the East Anglian Air Ambulance, Ely Cathedral, Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the Gibson School of Music at King’s School, Ely. He also led the funding for The Newmarket Stallion, a landmark 15ft-high statue by Lady Marcia Astor that stands on the roundabout near the town’s July Course, which he unveiled in 2000.

The Exning estate was acquired in 1919

by Mr Gibson’s great-uncle, William James Tatum, later Lord Glanely, a ship owner from Cardiff who made his fortune shipping Welsh coal to Italy and bringing grain back to Europe via the Black Sea ports. A lifelong lover of the sport of kings, he bought the estate to house his stable of racing and breeding stock—among them his 1919 Derby winner, Grand Parade, which is buried in the grounds. Lord Glanely was killed in the Second World War leaving no surviving heir, whereupon the estate passed to the Gibson family.

Over the years, the Exning estate has evolved into a dynamic country estate with an impressive mix of farming, residential, equestrian, renewable and commercial assets.

The residential portfolio includes a total of 61 houses let on a variety of tenancy agreements, producing a total rental income of £536,000 a year. The principal house, now in need of some updating, is the 8,000sq ft Landwade Hall, a mainly 20th-century building incorporating parts of a post-medieval manor house with a Grade II-listed, 15thcentury barn, a private church, a farmhouse, cottages and farm buildings, the whole set in 257 acres of gardens, beautifully fenced parkland, paddocks and woodland—on offer at a guide price of £8m.

The estate, which is farmed in-hand, comprises 1,000 acres growing wheat, barley, oilseed rape and sugar beet with farmhouses, buildings and storage at the 663-acre Gravel Pit Farm (guide price £9m) and the 213-acre Grass Plant Farm, an arable unit with farm buildings and two cottages, on offer at £2.6m.

A beef enterprise at Landwade Farm comprises a suckler herd of 120 cows and followers. The woodland and shelter belts on the estate, along with strategically planted game covers, form the basis of a locally renowned mixed lowland shoot.

A diverse commercial portfolio, generating a gross rental income of around £1.172m, includes the site of the world-famous Rossdales Equine Hospital; three let studs and a DIY livery business; a 155-acre solar farm; industrial lettings of former aircraft hangars; retail property in Newmarket; plus garages, sports pitches and telecoms masts. The June 22, 2022 | Country Life | 123

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Property market estate is available either as a going concern or as a sale of the property assets owned by the Exning Estate Company Limited.

Mr Gibson was a man of many interests, but racing was undoubtedly his great love.

Having inherited not only his great-uncle’s estate and business acumen, but also his famous racing colours, he saw success on the racecourse with horses trained at James Fanshawe’s Pegasus stables in Newmarket, the best of which was Society Rock, a winner at three, four, five and six years, at Ascot, Royal Ascot, Haydock and York, before retiring to stud in Ireland in 2013.

A love of racing tends to run in families and James’s cousin, Rob Fanshawe, of buying agents Property Vision in Newbury (07920 413270), has walked the turf of many a successful training establishment. He can even claim to walk in the shoes of racing legend, the late Maj Dick Hern, having won a pair of the trainer’s stout brogues in a bet with the latter’s assistant trainer back in the day.

In 1999, The Queen sold West Ilsley Stables to Mick Channon, who has maintained the yard’s fine track record It was Maj Hern who established the West Ilsley Stables in the pretty village of West Ilsley, 12 miles from Newbury, as a dominant force in English racing, following the yard’s purchase by his patron, the Hon John Jacob Astor, in 1962. From 1963 to 1989, he sent out no fewer than 25 Classic winners from West Ilsley, among them Brigadier Gerard, Bustino, Henbit, Troy and Nashwan. He also trained The Queen’s multiple Group winner, Height of Fashion, which she later sold to Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum; it’s understood that she bought West Ilsley with the proceeds in 1982.

In 1999, The Queen sold West Ilsley Stables to its present owner, former Southampton and England footballer Mick Channon, who has maintained the yard’s fine track record by sending out the winners of more than 2,000 races. During his time there, Mr Channon has greatly improved the accommodation and facilities of one of England’s most famous training yards, set in some 63 acres in the heart of the West Berkshire Downs, within the North Wessex Downs AONB.

Historic Knapton Hall in rural North Yorkshire is for sale for the first time in 51 years. £3m

The main house on the immaculate small country estate is the beautifully renovated Hodcott House, a charming, 6,243sq ft family home with four reception rooms, a large kitchen/breakfast room and six bedroom suites. The equestrian facilities comprise 105 loose boxes, 35 stalls, trotting and lungeing rings and a covered horse-walker. Staff accommodation is available on site in three flats above the stables, two semi-detached cottages, five detached bungalows, eight semi-detached bungalows and a former hostel. The owners have also converted a former barn into a 5,231sq ft, two-storey office block.

Now, with cost-cutting and efficiency a number-one priority for racehorse trainers great and small, Mr Channon is looking to the future by establishing his son and assistant trainer, Jack, in a slimmed-down, more costeffective racing yard, reveals Rupert Sweeting of Knight Frank (020–7861 1078), who quotes a guide price of £6.975m for West Ilsley as a whole, or in up to five lots.

It’s grand up north, where York-based agent Edward Hartshorne of Blenkin & Co (01904 671672) and Edward Welton of Knight Frank (020–7861 1114) are handling the sale of handsome Knapton Hall in the rural village of West Knapton, seven miles from the racing town of Malton, following the death of its

legendary long-term owner, Raymond Twiddle, who made his fortune by establishing a yearround market for turkeys, in association with his friend and rival, Bernard Matthews.

Situated in the Derwent Valley, between the city of York and the Yorkshire coast at Scarborough, the Hall was the historic seat of another wealthy ship-builder, Edward Tindall, in whose family it remained for more than 200 years. Part of the house is thought to date from the 1750s, with the eastern wing rebuilt following a fire a century later. For sale for the first time in 51 years, the imposing, 7,800sq ft country house, once part of a 1,000-acre estate, stands at the end of a long tree-lined drive looking out across its gardens and wooded parkland with far-reaching views to the Yorkshire Wolds.

Now in need of modernisation, Knapton Hall has accommodation on three floors, including five reception rooms, a snooker room, a kitchen, two bedroom suites and two/ three further bedrooms, with vaulted cellars and attics. It comes with two flats, two cottages (one requiring complete renovation) and a substantial range of barns, stabling and outbuildings, on offer with 40 acres of gardens and parkland at a guide price of £2m or £3m with an additional cottage and 60 acres of woodland and pasture.

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Properties of the week

Annunciata Elwes

A life less ordinary From rock ’n’ roll to sleeping Suffragettes and slopes instead of stairs, there are some strange, but wonderful, houses on the market

Cornwall, £2.25 million The Old Sawmills may be accessible only by boat or on foot, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been much visited over the years. On the contrary, since 1974, the likes of Robert Plant, Stone Roses, Oasis, Supergrass and Muse have floated up to its pretty seclusion of 32 acres (mostly woodland), to belt out the much loved tunes of, for example, Definitely Maybe and Origin of Symmetry in its ‘legendary’ lower-ground-floor recording studio. There are seven bedrooms in the main house (including one that sleeps four), most of which enjoy magnificent views over the garden and creek, called Bodmin Pill—site of a momentous picnic of May 1907, which may have inspired Kenneth Grahame.

‘Green turf sloped down to either edge, brown snaky tree-roots gleamed below the surface of the quiet water, while ahead of them the silvery shoulder and foamy tumble of a weir, arm-in-arm with a restless dripping mill-wheel, that held up in its turn a grey-gabled millhouse, filled the air with a soothing murmur of sound, dull and smothery, yet with little clear voices speaking up cheerfully out of it at intervals.’ (The Wind in the Willows). A separate twobedroom timber Lodge was built in 2011 and the property is only half a mile by boat from the village of Golant; Fowey is about 1½ miles in the other direction.

Strutt & Parker (01392 215631)

Devon, £3.5 million ‘The owners spent three years painstakingly renovating the house into a unique family home,’ say agents of sevenbedroom Shotts Manor—just below Haytor and 17 miles from Exeter—the interiors of which combine Italianate villa with gypsy caravan and everything in between. Moroccan tiles feature heavily, as do breathtaking Dartmoor views, with the house’s design centred on the sunrise; there’s also an oval slate-framed open fire, carved doors from India, handpainted walls in viewing gallery The Nest and, as well as a staircase, a playful slope leading from first to ground floor.

Little Shotts is a two-bedroom cottage in the grounds, Tiny Shotts a garden office and a footpath through woods will lead you to The Rock Inn. Strutt & Parker (020–7591 2207)

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Properties of the week Somerset, £1.3 million Emmeline Place, a four-bedroom, fourstorey home gets its name from the period between 1909 and 1912. At the time, it was owned by Col Linley Blathwayt and his Suffragette wife, Emily, and guests recuperating after hunger strikes at their summer-house, known as the Suffragette’s Rest, included Emmeline Pankhurst, Adela Pankhurst and Annie Kenney. Designed by John Wood the Elder, the architect responsible for Bath’s much-lauded Royal Crescent, it sits three miles from the city centre at the entrance to the rural walkways of St Catherine’s Valley. Recent restoration brings it to the market in pristine condition, as does Italianate-style landscaping to the garden, with an outdoor dining area, that matches the house’s Regency façade. Carter Jonas (01225 637797) North Yorkshire, offers over £1.4 million Judging from the Edwardian dolls-house style of Pinewood Manor, at Breary Banks, near Masham, with its impeccable yet characterful interiors and painted panelled walls, not many would guess at its history as a prisoner-of-war camp for German officers during both World Wars. Jawdropping Nidderdale AONB views must have made it something of a haven, although there have obviously been modern improvements, such as the heated indoor-pool complex. Built in 1905, it has six bedrooms, a balcony, sun terrace, separate two-bedroom cottage, a garden of lawns and mature trees bounded by a stream and a stable block, tack room and barn. Jackson-Stops (01625 540340)

London SW1, from £895,000 We can thank the then crew at Westminster Fire Station for saving Westminster Abbey from near destruction after a bombing raid in 1940. Erected in 1906 and retired in 2014, this handsome Baroque building saw a century of change, from the end of horsedrawn engines in 1921 to the first female firefighter in 1982; now, it sees perhaps the biggest change of all, as the first phase of apartments are launched to the market since its eco-friendly conversion began.

Nine of the total 17 residences (of varying sizes) are available, with one-bedroom apartments from £895,000. Six are in the original building and 11 in the adjoining newbuild Station House by Openstudio Architects, connected by the former turning circle for engine bays and horses, now a ‘green oasis’ of a courtyard. CBRE (020–7420 3050; www.westminsterfirestation.com) 126 | Country Life | June 22, 2022

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Northumberland, £150,000 Could this be the smallest property ever to feature in COUNTRY LIFE? The charms of the tiny Bendor Signal Box are hard to resist. North-west of Wooler—a pretty little town overlooking the Cheviot Hills—it once served Akeld station on the old Cornhill Branch railway line, which ran between Alnwick and Kelso from 1884, its final section closing in 1965. Today, all traces of industry are gone and the building is surrounded by glorious countryside and overlooked by Humbleton Hill, the site of a bloody 1402 conflict between the English and Scots, recounted in Shakespeare’s Henry IV. Planning permission was granted in 2012 to build a two-bedroom property retaining the original signal box with a single storey extension to the east, including gardens and a plot of land (further land is available by separate negotiation), but new plans can easily be made. Finest Properties (01434 522234)

9000

Hampshire, £2.5 million There’s plenty of development potential at Vann Farm, close to the village of Hawkley and seven miles from Petersfield, in the beautiful South Downs, where there’s not one, but two houses. A sunny cedar-clad farmhouse was built in the 1960s, with a woodburner, French doors and four bedrooms—the master has a balcony and en suite shower room; meanwhile, the original 19th-century stone cottage has long been used as a garage, but would make an attractive house if converted. In all, there are 37 acres available as a whole or in four lots. Lot 1 consists of the farmhouse and former cottage with mature gardens; Lot 2 comprises agricultural buildings and 17¾ acres of farmland; Lot 3 is pasture and woodland of almost five acres; and Lot 4 almost 14 acres of the same.

Wilson Hill (01730 262600) and BCM (01962 763900)

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