Two magnificent, historic country estates for sale
Today sees the official launch in Country Life of one of England's great Victorian country houses, Cowdray Park at Midhurst, West Sussex, which is being sold with 110 acres of the historic, 16,500-acre Cowdray estate, at a guide price of £25 million through Knight Frank (020-7629 8171).
Lord Cowdray, the 4th Viscount, feels that the 44,000sq ft mansion is simply too big for the family's needs, and, rather than burdening the next generation with a difficult decision, will now move back to the more manageable Greenhill at Fernhurst, where he and Lady Cowdray lived before he inherited the estate in 1995.
The original Cowdray Park was built on the site of an earlier manor by Sir David Owen, great-uncle of Henry VII, between 1520 and 1529. In 1529, Owen's son Henry sold the estate to Sir William Fitzwilliam, a favourite of Henry VIII, for £2,000, and, four years later, Sir William was licensed by the king to empark and crenellate the house. In 1542, Cowdray passed to Sir William's half-brother, Sir Anthony Browne, whose son became the 1st Viscount Montague.
Thereafter, the Cowdray estate remained in the hands of the Montague family until 1793, when the 8th Viscount was drowned in the Rhine in Switzerland, a few weeks after Cowdray House was partially destroyed by fire. More than 200 years later, the massive Tudor ruins have been stabilised with the help of a National Lottery grant, and opened to the public as a major local attraction.
In 1794, the 8th Viscount's sister, Elizabeth, inherited the Cowdray estate and went to live with her husband and family in the former keeper's lodge. In 1843, her daughters sold the estate to George Perceval, 6th Earl of Egmont, for £300,000. His son, the 7th Earl, inherited the estate in 1874, and, over the next four years, rebuilt and extended the lodge to create the present Cowdray Park House.
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In 1908, his son, the 8th Earl, sold the estate to Sir Weetman Dickinson Pearson, an enormously successful engineer, oil industrialist and owner of the Pearson conglomerate. He was created Baron Cowdray of Midhurst in 1910, and 1st Viscount Cowdray in January 1917. In 1919, he gave the estate to his eldest son Harold, a fanatical polo player, who succeeded him in 1927, since when Cowdray has become synonymous with the sport of polo.
No sooner had the Pearson family arrived in 1908 than a polo ground was laid out at Cowdray Park and another beside a bend in the River Rother close to the famous Cowdray ruins; the Cowdray Park Polo Club was born. The new Lord Cowdray's son, John, shared his father's passion for the sport, and when, aged 23, he inherited the estate and title in 1933, he carried on where his father had left off.
The progress of polo was halted by the Second World War, when the pitches were ploughed up and the house was taken over by the Royal Army Service Corps. Post-war, despite losing an arm, Lord Cowdray re-formed his Cowdray Park team, and, in the 50 years until his death in 1995, firmly established Cowdray as the Mecca of international polo, a role that will be unaffected by the proposed sale.
Years of army occupation left their mark on Cowdray Park House, and after the war, the 3rd Viscount spent several years refurbishing it. By the late 1980s, the house was again in need of major renovation, and it was left to the 4th Viscount to eventually complete the work. Given the building's ambassadorial proportions, it was not a project for the faint-hearted.
In addition to the spectacular Buck Hall, with its barrel-vaulted ceiling and minstrel's gallery, the house has five grand state rooms, seven palatial bedroom suites, a nursery wing with six more bedrooms and two bathrooms, and staff accommodation on the third floor. Further estate housing includes eight main-house flats, six semi-detached cottages and four stable flats; outbuildings include an eight-box stable yard and garaging for 12 cars.
The park's magnificent gardens, grounds and wooded parkland boast two lakes, indoor and outdoor pools, a hard tennis court, a cricket pitch, a stick-and-ball polo field (the original Cowdray Park ground) and a manège. Whoever its new patron turns out to be, he will find the Cowdray family a hard act to follow. A closing date for receipt of ‘expressions of serious interest' has been set at Thursday, October 21.
They say you should never look back, but Tony Morris-Eyton of Savills in Telford (01952 239500) is happy to handle the sale of Regency Eyton Hall at Eyton-upon-the-Weald Moors, Shropshire, which was owned by his family from medieval times until 1962. Royalist Sir Thomas Eyton forfeited much of the then vast estate, as a result of his participation in the Civil War. More recent Eytons of note include T. C. Eyton, a friend of Charles Darwin, who wrote A History of the Rarer British Birds (1836), and the Rev Robert William Eyton, author of The Antiquities of Shropshire.
Grade II-listed Eyton Hall looks very different now than it did in their day, thanks to an inspirational makeover by its two most recent owners. Following the demolition of two Victorian wings, the hall now has 7,425sq ft of living space, including entrance and inner halls, four reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, seven bedrooms, four bathrooms and extensive cellars.
The guide price of £2.35m includes a coach house, stabling and outbuildings, plus a derelict lodge cottage and a further coach house, both of which have planning consent. Its 28 acres of Victorian gardens, grounds and woodland include 13 acres of parkland bounded by an oxbow lake.
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