Historic country houses for sale
Since ancient times, travellers have scurried along Hertfordshire’s arterial roads on their way north from London. The Romans built Ermine Street, linking London with York; part of it is now the A10. The Great North Road, now the A1, cut the county in two; the M1 and the M11 completed its dismemberment. But, in between motorways, country roads meander from east to west through unspoilt medieval villages. In Elizabethan times, great country houses were built in these quiet corners, which had the advantage of being close to London and offered good hunting in the forests. And today’s City grandees will still pay a high price for real country living, a mere 40 minutes’ drive from the Bank of England.
The tortuous B1004 leads west from the Stansted roundabout on the M11, through Bishop’s Stortford, to the enchanting village of Much Hadham, for centuries the country seat of the Bishops of London, and still the county’s showpiece. Much Hadham has an unusually high proportion of medium-sized ‘gentlemen’s houses’, the most architecturally important of which is Moor Place, which stands at the end of a long drive to the west of the main village street.
According to an article in Country Life (January 26, 1956), Moor Place was built on a park belonging to the Bishops’ palace, although the original Elizabethan house was replaced in 1779 by the Georgian building designed for James Gordon who inherited the estate in 1768 by the genial, but relatively unknown architect, Robert Mitchell.
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The south wing was rebuilt in 1907 by Sir Ernest Newton for Frederick Henry Norman, great-grandfather of the present owner, who bought Moor Place in 1886. Today sees the launch in Country Life of the tranquil, 781-acre Moor Place estate through Strutt & Parker (020–7629 7282) at a guide price of £17.5 million. As selling agent James Laing points out: ‘It’s rare to find an estate of this size and quality so close to central London, and even more unusual that it should come to the market.’
There is a gentle air of timelessness about Moor Place, which has changed little since Bryan Norman took on the estate from his father some 30-odd years ago. Few families can boast such distinguished London connections: Montagu Norman, the second generation of Normans to own Moor Place, was Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944, and Bryan Norman’s father, Ronald, was chairman both of the BBC and London County Council.
Architect Robert Mitchell described the main house as ‘built upon a rising-ground, in a park well planted with trees of a stately growth and commanding a prospect of a rich and agreeable country’. And although Mitchell’s elegant square Georgian block has been cleverly extended, it still remains the core of the present Grade I-listed house, with its wonderful staircase hall, charming library and dining room, and splendid light-filled drawing room, where the green floral wallpaper, now more than 100 years old, looks almost as fresh as the day it was hung.
A cantilevered stone staircase leads to the first-floor master suite, five further bedrooms and two bathrooms, with five smaller bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor. Sir Ernest Newton’s four-bedroom nursery wing also houses the traditional kitchen and breakfast room, and the basement and the west wing (added in 1886 by Norman Shaw) are currently used as staff flats. A new kitchen and additional bathrooms will probably rank high on a new owner’s wish list.
‘With its four-bedroom dower house, formal and walled gardens, five cottages, Grade II*-listed stable block and three farmyards, plus 600 acres of arable land, 38 acres of woodland and 85 aces of parkland, Moor Place is a traditional country estate in the true sense of the term,’ adds a confident James Laing, who has probably sold more estates in his career than any other agent in the country.
Further north, a few miles from the junction of the A14 and the A1, Grade II*-listed Hemingford Park at Hemingford Abbots, near Huntingdon, is well placed for driving in any direction. For sale at a guide price of £4.5m through Jackson-Stops & Staff (01638 662231) in what Jock Lloyd Jones describes as ‘one of the autumn’s flagship sales’, Hemingford Park stands in 71.5 acres of idyllic parkland on the banks of the River Great Ouse.
Built for the Rev J. Limon in 1842 by the 19th-century architect and garden designer Decimus Burton, a protégé of John Nash, Hemingford Park was once the heart of a 300-acre estate with its own cricket pitch, where W. G. Grace is said to have hit boundaries to all four corners of the ground when he stayed at the house.
When the present owners bought the estate in the late 1970s, they had the whole house reroofed, rewired and replumbed, and beautifully decorated inside and out. With its original panelled doors, cornice mouldings, high ceilings, full-height sash windows and original fireplaces, the interior is an impressive mix of formality and ease.
The 13,870sq ft house has five reception rooms, a master suite, nine further bedrooms, four bathrooms and a heated indoor swimming pool. Out-buildings include a coach house, stables and garaging. Heming-ford’s prized herd of Simmental cattle can be bought separately, as the owner would like them to remain on the estate.
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