Berkshire — £2,500,000

This barn conversion mixes rustic charm with cutting edge architecture and engineering, with glass walls that really bring the outside and inside together.

The result is a home that's both cosy and slick, impressive and comfortable — not an easy balance to achieve.

For sale with Fine & Country. See more pictures and details for this property.

Northamptonshire — £1,750,000

A modern country house with six bedrooms and an acre of gardens.

It's immaculate, spacious and has open views of local countryside.

For sale with Michael Graham. See more pictures and details for this property.

Oxfordshire — £1,950,000

Just a minute's stroll from the centre of Thame, this new development — The Crescent — promises a fine blend of old and new.

Award winning architects Yiangou created the design, while the surrounding parkland provides charming surroundings.

For sale with Savills. See more pictures and details for this property.

Anglesey — £3,000,000

On the south-east corner of Angelsey, this grand home is set in grounds whch run down to the water's edge.

There is a huge amount of period charm, five bedrooms, a tennis court, swimming pool and a croquet lawn, while the historic town of Beaumaris is nearby.

For sale with Strutt & Parker. See more pictures and details for this property.

Devon — £4,000,000

Set at the end of its own private drive and surrounded by delightful gardens, this picture-perfect farmhouse has a history going back centuries.

What's on offer is extensive: 30 acres and 13,000sq ft in total across the main house, party barn and several cottages.

For sale with Knight Frank. See more pictures and details for this property.

What would your dream British home look like? A clifftop palace overlooking a beautiful beach? A crenellated fortress in the Scottish highlands? A thatched cottage in a snow-covered landscape, with a wisp of smoke rising into the crisp night sky?

We can but dream, which is sort of the point of the online property part of this website. Above you will see a home called Rogershook. As dream British homes go, the image of a still lake, a rowboat, animals grazing and a stone farmhouse overlooking it all surely ranks pretty high. For sale for £1.35 million with Country Living Group.

It almost feels silly to go on. With a view such as that one, it doesn’t really matter what the rest of the house looks like, or what else is in or on the 15 acres of land included in the asking price (a further 100 acres are available upon negotiation). It could be a ruin. Thankfully, it is anything but.

Where is it? Pembrokeshire. How long has it been owned in the same family? More than 60 years. How many bedrooms? Five. Is it surrounded by lush English countryside? It is. Do several streams skirt the property and buildings in carefully curated waterways, heading downhill and into the aforementioned lake? They do.

All of these questions, and their answers, tell you that Rogershook is a home of substantial character and charm. This is reflected in the splendid interiors, which feature a range of period features (EG, the original hearth, now occupied by an Aga) and modern comforts (EG, the very nice bathroom). There is also fast internet, which is provided by Starlink.

Outside, the 15 acres of gardens and grounds include three stone barns, which already have residential planning permission, and work on their conversion has already started.

Rogershook is for sale with Country Living Group for £1.35 million. For more information and pictures, click here.

Older farmhouses scattered across rural, deeply wooded areas on the Surrey and Sussex border have lost nothing of their appeal in the 21st century. A perfect example is Williards Farm, which two years ago was featured in Country Life’s architecture section, when Jeremy Musson wrote a beautiful piece about the work that’s gone in to what is an exemplary renovation and extension.

Now, we’re featuring Willards Farm once again, since this Grade II-listed property near Dunsfold in Surrey has come to the market through Knight Frank in Guildford, with selling agent Nigel Mitchell quoting a guide price of £8 million.

Willards Farm stands in 23 acres of gardens, paddocks and woodland, half a mile from the picturesque village of Dunsfold, 6½ miles from Godalming and 11 miles from Guildford. It’s one of an estimated 3,500 historic farmsteads located within the High Weald National Landscape, which covers 564 square miles across the counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

The focal point of the charming small estate is the central main farmhouse, a four-bay, 16th-century timber-frame building of two storeys under a clay-tile roof, which was extended to the north in the 1930s and to the south in the 1980s.

The latest renovation, completed in 2019, was the work of Dorset-based Stuart Martin, a successful country house architect and a member of the architectural advisory panel of The Lutyens Trust, which promotes research into the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens. ‘It’s not difficult to see the work at Willards as a 21st-century response to the great architect’s work,’ Jeremy wrote in his 2022 piece, ‘which is unsurprising, as Lutyens grew up in the area, gaining inspiration from these kinds of farmhouse and barn groups.

‘The new work at Willards is both a reflection and a concentration of the house’s original character. It remains a picturesque house of Surrey vernacular charm — framed by oaks and the typical rolling wooded landscape of this area — but with a memorable new dimension’.

Essentially, the brief from the owners was to provide extra space without losing any of the character of the 16th-century core. The 1980s additions at the south end of the house were removed and a new pergola and summer-house, both designed by Mr Martin, were added to the garden at this end. The modest 1930s addition to the north was replaced by a much larger extension that was carefully integrated into the existing house.

The front door opens onto a large reception room, which branches off to the original wing of the house in one direction and the modern wing in the other. The modern wing comprises a fully equipped, open-plan family kitchen/dining room, next to which is a grand, double-height music room, reminiscent of the 1920s music room designed by Lutyens for Country Life founder Edward Hudson at Plumpton Place, East Sussex.

The old wing comprises a study, snug and the original drawing room, which boasts a fireplace and traditional wooden beams that date from the 16th century. The vast, newly installed cellar comprises a media room, shower room and sauna, wine cellar, laundry area, plant room and utility room. The first floor houses principal and guest bedrooms with bathrooms en suite, four further bedrooms, a family bathroom, shower room, and ‘a den with a starry ceiling’.

Ancillary accommodation is provided in various outbuildings. The Barn, converted from a historic cart barn, is now an ‘all-singing, all-dancing’ party barn; The Byre is a new, self-contained three-bedroom annexe to the house; the one-bedroom Garden Cottage has planning consent to extend; The Granary is a cosy two-bedroom cottage; the Spitfire Barn is a quirky, one-bedroom barn conversion. All residential buildings, bar The Granary, have underfloor heating and/or ground-source heat pumps.

The gardens are a playground for children of all ages. Amenities include an all-weather tennis court and a swimming pool with a ‘Cornish rock pool’ design and a spectacular pool slide (the latter available by separate negotiation).

Elsewhere in the grounds are a large pond with a controlled flow system, a vegetable garden and greenhouse and an apple orchard and store. The rest of the grounds are laid to paddocks and woodland, with a stream running along the western border.

For sale with a guide price of £8 million — see more pictures and details.

From the outside, there is perhaps not too much about Glebe Farm that catches the eye. It is a large red-brick building in a lovely part of the Nottinghamshire countryside. It is surrounded by lawns and mature trees. There is a ha-ha. All pretty straightforward so far.

But we know better than to make assumptions, don’t we. Because unassuming things often have the ability to surprise us, don’t they. And Glebe Farm is indeed very surprising, because it has undergone quite the transformation from a former farmhouse into a deliciously luxurious modern home with all the trimmings. For sale with Fine & Country for £2.5 million.

The best things come in hidden packages. That’s why we like Christmas so much. And birthdays. And Glebe Farm. Situated in the south Nottinghamshire village of Stanton on the Wolds, the property offers five bedrooms and some extremely stylish interiors set in a U-shape plan over two floors.

The bones of the house are very old, but the interiors are very new. Restored by the current owner, the property now features more than 4,200sq ft of living space, highlights of which include a double-height open plan living room and dining area.

Three bedrooms occupy the ground floor, while another guest bedroom and the principal bedroom are on the first floor.

On the first floor you will also find the study, which boasts a large internal window from which you can keep an eye on the rest of the house while you work, like some kind of villain. I’m a big fan of internal windows.

Outside, the property boasts extensive gardens of about two acres, which are mostly set to lawn on all sides. In said gardens you will find extensive planting areas for growing your own fruit or vegetables. You will also find a timber-framed gazebo, which is ideal for al-fresco dining and entertaining.

Another real highlight of Glebe Farm is its leisure facilities. A timber barn has been transformed into a home gym, while the gardens also feature a freestanding barrel sauna and a natural swimming pond with a deck.

Everything is here, but wrapped up in an unassuming package. Classy.

Glebe Farm is for sale with Fine & Country for £2.5 million. For more information and pictures, click here

One of England’s great secrets is East Anglia and one of East Anglia’s great secrets is that some of the houses are pink. I grew up in Suffolk, so this is not a secret to me, nor are the great villages, beautiful fields, sublime coastlines and kind people — all within two hours of London. We are in the business of sharing our secrets here at Country Life.

This property on the outskirts of Southburgh in Norfolk feels like a secret worth sharing. It is that fabulous East Anglian shade of pink. It has a splendid thatched roof. It has two acres of gardens and grounds, and four bedrooms. It is for sale with Sowerbys for offers in excess of £700,000. It has a rare ‘Cheese Room’ tax sign, whatever that might mean.

With elements listing from the 16th century, it is a home of considerable character. Thankfully, however, it has seen some more modern additions, notably in the 19th and 20th centuries. The interiors have been updated even more recently, and within the astoundingly traditional exterior is a modern home ideal for family living.

As discussed, the property offers four bedrooms over its two floors. The interiors have been carefully designed to be bright, welcoming and modern, while all the while respecting the immense character within the beams and walls.

Highlights include the spacious kitchen area, with central hob, and the enormous master bedroom suite. The dining room is also achingly traditional, with the vast brick fireplace taking centre stage. Everything here has been designed thoughtfully, which is always easier said than done.

So what is a Cheese Room tax sign? In 1696, William III introduced a window tax, which was a levy on the number of windows in a property. However, rooms such as dairies and cheese rooms were exempt, assuming they were clearly labelled. Before the Cayman Islands, there were cheese rooms. More traditionally associated with the north of England, the label is a rare find.

Outside, the gardens and grounds are a mix of lawned areas and wild meadow. Trees provide privacy, while a detached car lodge and garage provide plenty of space for storage. The city of Norwich is 15 miles to the north.

Willow Farm is for sale with Sowerbys for offers in excess of £700,000. For more information and pictures, click here

A happy coincidence

The various surveys and analyses which tell you which are the best places to live, have the prettiest houses or the best waterfront property aren't always — it has to be said — massively useful for those with limited budgets. Which is to say, almost everybody. After all, towns like Richmond-upon-Thames and Harrogate are gorgeous — but enormously expensive by pretty much any measure.

So it's something of a nice surprise to spot recent research by estate agency network eXp UK which looked at the happiest places in Britain, but cross-checked the data with average house prices.

And it threw up some interesting data. Top of the happiness list (based on the government's Office of National Statistics figures looking at local districts) put North Kesteven at the top. This East Midlands area, not far from Lincoln, recorded a happiness score of 8.09; for comparison, bottom of the happiness table was Adur, in West Sussex, covering the area between Worthing and Brighton, with just 6.16.

The good bit for people keen on Kesteven? Houses in the district are 12% cheaper than the national average, coming in at £257,199.

Even better news for those seeking a bargain, however, is that second on the list comes the Lancashire district of Pendle, scoring 8.06 for happiness, but with an average house price of just £146,516.

That's literally half the national average, and having had a look we can confirm that bargains are to be had. This 20-acre farm costs just £625,000, for example (though the farmhouse needs a complete refurb), while we also found an impressive cottage for just over £400k, homes at under several homes at under £100,000, and — our favourite of the lot — this equestrian property bursting with character and charm, with 2.5 ares included and more space available as an add-0n, all for £600,000 via Anthony Dawson.

Quiz of the Day

• 1) The surname ‘Fuller’ once described someone who worked with which material?
• 2) Which word beginning with S can refer to an article of clothing, a cut of meat and part of a saddle?
• 3) Which two butterfly species are often referred to as ‘cabbage whites’?
• 4) The Native American Amonute, who was also known as Matoaka and became Rebecca Rolfe after marriage, is better known by what name?
• 5) Which commonly used word is a contraction of ‘God be with you’?

Ice and fire

If you don't follow @countrylifemagazine on Instagram, you might have missed this magnificent picture we shared at the weekend. And if you do, and did see it... well, Chris Gorman's pic is so glorious we're fairly sure you won't mind seeing it again.

Winter sun in Greenwich

The Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich is already beautiful enough to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But winter can take the edge off even the most wonderful buildings, so it's great to see them bringing light and wonder to the majestic Painted Hall thanks to Luke Jerram's new installation, Helios, which promises a dazzling ‘winter sun’ escape in the cold months. Book a visit here.

The village of the Supercar

There are well-heeled villages across the land where supercars are so prevalent it's 'like living in an episode of Top Gear'. Anna White found out more.

That's it — we're back tomorrow

Quiz Answers:

• 1) Wool
• 2) Skirt
• 3) Large white (Pieris brassicae) and small white (Pieris rapae)
• 4) Pocahontas
• 5) Goodbye

The owners of this house, who are based overseas, wanted to ensure the property would act as a haven that could comfortably accommodate their young family when they return to the UK for holidays. ‘Our vision was to create a classic country house without the formality, lifting the heavy woodwork and original beams with fresh colour and charming patterns that bring a sense of joy and warmth,’ explains interior designer Sean Symington, who was raised and educated in Canada before moving to the UK.

The house has a succession of interconnecting rooms and three staircases. A local architectural firm had already restored the property, including sanding down the wooden beams and replastering the walls.

‘Our aim with this sitting room was to make it seem as if the room had evolved over time, yet also have a youthful energy,’ explains Mr Symington.

‘We wanted to avoid too much symmetry, hence using different fabrics on the furniture and mixing up the scale of patterns. The colour scheme for the room comes from one of the sofa cushions, which includes teal blue, green and yellow—that was our starting point.’

The large botanical print on the left-hand sofa is by Lewis & Wood. Opposite is a green sofa and pale-yellow footstool, both covered in designs by Fermoie.

On the walls is Edward Bulmer’s plaster-pink Jonquil paint. A bespoke club fender offers extra perching space for when the family entertains, upholstered in a fabric by Soane.

Floor lamps from Vaughan provide much of the light. Other pieces, such as the drop-leaf Georgian side table and set of green plates, were sourced at local auctions.

Sean Symington — 07918 080355; www.seansymington.com

If you’re looking to up sticks and move to the country, but you’re wondering what you’d do there — and you don’t fancy going down the farming route a la Jeremy Clarkson or Kelvin Fletcher — there’s a fascinating option on the market right now. It’s a 212-acre farm in Cumbria, not far from Cockermouth, and it’s for sale through Strutt & Parker at £1.5 million — which is the same price as this two-bedroom flat in Barnet.

There is a catch — there’s always a catch — in that the agents coyly note that the traditional Cumbrian longhouse that’s the actual accommodation here is ‘in need of refurbishment’. These are words that are not too worrying when accompanied by pictures… but when the property listing has no internal pictures at all, your mind can’t help but run riot. What lies within?

That said, the opportunity here is far more than just a pretty house on a stunningly beautiful hillside in the Lake District, because a bigger prize is at stake: planning permission has been granted to turn the string of farm buildings into tourist accommodation. And it’ll be tourist accommodation with spectacular views of the Solway Firth to the north and the Cumbrian mountains to the south. You can see more details about the new life that awaits at the property listing page on the Strutt & Parker website.

Quiz of the Day

1) How many bones in the human skull are movable?

2) What would you keep in a tantalus?

3) La Cucaracha is a song about which creature?

4) How many yards are there in a chain?

5) Which Royal residence is on the bank of the River Dee?

Steward's enquiry?

If you missed the news on Friday, Annabel Dixon did a deep-dive on the news that Woodbridge in Suffolk has been named the happiest town in Britain.

It was a surprise at first, since Woodbridge had been nowhere near the top five in previous editions of Righmove's survey. Did the good denizens of Woodbridge coordinate a bit of tactical voting? It must be noted that an extra 9,000 people took part in this year's survey, which is roughly the population of this little Suffolk town. Is skulduggery afoot?

But then you think about it, and it's not really a surprise at all since it's a town full of fun, independent shops, beautiful architecture, great food and scenery which makes you feel like you're living in a Constable painting.

Posh Jo Malone candles

If you like them, you have something in common with Mary Berry. She spoke to Hetty Lintell about these and more of her favourite things.

If you've ever wondered why Dracula was set in Whitby...

...this picture of the Abbey should convince you. Beauty, wintry elegance and a chill down your spine which is only partially down to the weekend temperatures...

There's only two Ollie Robinsons

Cricket fans are agog at the makeup of England's latest Test cricket team, since it features a wicketkeeper called Ollie Robinson, who shares his name with England fast bowler Ollie Robinson. The latter isn't in the line-up at the moment, but everyone in the world of sport is crossing their fingers for the potential joy that would be watching two identically-named cricketers playing at the same time for England. Surely the selectors can see that they shouldn't stand in the way of this happening?

What makes it even better is that they share a birthday (albeit five years apart). According to sporting email list The Upshot, the chances of two young cricket players sharing a name, and a birthday, and getting picked for England is one in 1.3 trillion.

That's it — we're back tomorrow

Quiz Answers

1) One (lower jaw or mandible)

2) Decanters/alcohol

3) A cockroach

4) 22

5) Balmoral Castle

Sometimes, when a house is so special, you need not one, but two, agents to sell it. I always wonder what that looks like. I suppose I could pick up the phone, call an estate agent, and ask them what it’s like to share a listing with a rival. But that sounds a lot like hard work, so I’d rather just imagine it in my head. Will the two agents be like a buddy cop movie? Is one good agent and bad agent? Are we leaning more towards rom com? If you ever see me at a party, or at the pub, and I am staring into the distance, this is likely what I’m thinking about. It’s probably why I don’t get invited to many parties.

Anyway, here’s a house in Surrey that you can buy from Savills and/or Knight Frank, with an asking price of £10.5 million. You might be thinking, reasonably, ‘woah, £10.5 million is a lot for a house’. But you have not seen the house (or, at least, much of the house). And you certainly haven’t read what I have written about the house.

It is named Millhanger Farmhouse, and it is near Chiddingfold. Calling this place a farmhouse seems mildly ridiculous, considering it is more than 11,300sq ft in size. I suppose farmhouses have no maximum or minimum size, but I am once again swerving off topic.

Millhanger has six bedrooms, six bathrooms and six reception rooms. It is an Arts-and-Crafts style house designed by Yiangou in collaboration with Finchatton. It is new, it looks old, and I like that kind of thing. It also comes with a dash fewer than 35 acres of land. Space to do things, both inside and outside. 

Accessed via a private drive, the house is set centrally within its own landscape, on an elevated position, so as to offer 360º views of the surrounding countryside. There are some fine reception rooms, such as the drawing room, the morning room, the dining room (formal), the dining room (informal) and family snug. 

The six bedrooms (five on the first floor, one on the ground floor) are all en-suite, and there is also a staff flat, if having staff is your kind of thing. The property is quite unusual in its layout, with three protruding wings on one side of the home, and a single-storey cloister-cum-courtyard on the other. In the middle of it all is the kitchen. The kitchen being the heart of the home is taken quite literally here, as it is what joins the two structures.

‘The beauty of the butterfly plan is all about the orientation and light, and that it lends itself to a large central hallway that links beautifully to all the other principal rooms; it creates very inviting spaces and a lovely flowing plan,’ said Ross Sharpe, director of Yiangou. 

Interiors-wise, advice was sought from Sims-Hilditch, making the property a veritable who’s who of the Country Life Top 100. In fact, when you visit the Sims-Hilditch website, it is the very first picture you will see. So clearly they are quite proud of it.

Lastly, but certainly not leastly, it’s believed that Millhanger is the first Arts-and-Crafts home to achieve planning permission under Paragraph 84e planning consent. A truly one-of-a-kind home. 

Millhanger Farmhouse is for sale with Knight Frank and Savills for £10.5 million.

Credit: James Baily/Lurot Brand

A crumbling, one bedroom wreck with an energy efficiency rating of 1 out of 100, yours for £2.25 million... but what a location

The opportunity to create a dream home in Maida Vale's most sought after mews doesn't come along all that often,

You had me at merlot: The rise of English wine and what it means for the countryside

For the first time, the UK is home to more than 1,000 vineyards — and counting.

Credit: Abbotts

A 12th century Benedictine monastery with its own chapel that's now a seven-bedroom family home

There are homes with original features, and then there's Horsham St Faith Priory in Norfolk.

The Roseland Peninsula is about as far west as you can go. This part of west Cornwall is known for its access to the famed sailing waters of the Carrick Roads, its many hidden bays, beautiful rolling countryside and overall peace and tranquillity.

But not everyone knows that Cornwall was also the first county in England to install superfast broadband. This makes hybrid working a live option in some of the county’s most picturesque and private locations, says Falmouth-based agent Jonathan Cunliffe, who is handling the sale — at a guide price of £2m — of idyllic Messack Farmhouse at St Just in Roseland.

This is truly an enchanted spot. In his book In Search of England (1927), the travel writer H. V. Morton famously wrote of the village: ‘There is a degree of beauty that flies so high that no net of words or no snare of colour can hope to capture it, and of this order is the beauty of St Just-in-Roseland.’

Handsome Messack Farmhouse itself stands in 1¾ acres of wonderfully private gardens at the end of a long drive, deep within the Roseland countryside between St Just Creek and Tolcarne Creek on the eastern shore of the Carrick Roads, surrounded by farmland owned and protected by the National Trust.

The farmhouse holds a pedestrian right of way to the tidal St Just Creek and has a right to its own mooring. Perhaps most importantly, if hybrid working is the aim, it also boasts superfast fibre broadband, linked directly to the premises and hard-wired through to the annexe and office, which means there is no need for WiFi.

Messack Farmhouse offers 4,500sq ft of characterful and light-filled accommodation on two floors with the annexe linked to the main house by a versatile, 34ft-long family room.

The kitchen with its trusty Aga is the heart of the house, flanked by a large reception hall, well-appointed reception rooms and a series of utility and pantry spaces.

Upstairs, a large principal bedroom suite, four further bedrooms and two bathrooms are arranged between two staircases.

The rear garden, surrounded by rolling fields, enjoys a sunny southerly aspect and, to the north, a lovingly maintained kitchen garden provides bountiful vegetables, sweet peas and other delights.

Messack Farmhouse is for sale at £2m – see more pictures and details.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

John Le Carré's spectacular clifftop home in Cornwall has come on to the market

The writer John le Carré's impossibly romantic house has come to the market, set in a position as dramatic as

Credit: Cornish Gems

Is this the best holiday house to rent on Cornwall’s north coast?

The Great British summer (and May half-term) is looming large and trying to find the perfect place to holiday in

Hampshire — £3,950,000

What was once the hunting lodge of the Duke of Albemarle is now a nine-bedroom home set in 50 acres of Hampshire.

The buildings and grounds are in fine shape, while the inside — according to the agent — has been 'prepared for a personal internal design concept'... by which they mean gutted and stripped back to plain flooring and walls.

For sale with Knight Frank. See more pictures and details for this property.

Shropshire — £4,000,000

This Georgian masterpiece, as it stands today, was shaped mostly by Samuel Wyatt in the 18th century — the man who built the Pantheon on Oxford Street.

The rooms are on a truly epic scale, while there are plenty of mod cons: games room, indoor pool and a wine cellar.

For sale with Savills. See more pictures and details for this property.

Devon — £3,500,000

If ever a view from the front door could sell a house, it's at this wonderful 18th century home near Tiverton.

This was once a very grand vicarage; now, it's a sprawling home with four-bedrooms, a two-bedroom annexe and a coach house.

For sale with Strutt & Parker. See more pictures and details for this property.

Surrey — £1,995,000

An outstanding and substantial glorious country house with a totally unspoilt rural location, six bedrooms, formal gardens and paddock totalling eight acres — yet it's easily commutable to the City.

For sale with Jackson Stops. See more pictures and details for this property.

Kent — £1,250,000

An ideal commuter home near Sevenoaks, beautifully presented inside with five bedrooms and a converted barn.

For sale with Knight Frank. See more pictures and details for this property.

North Yorkshire — £800,000

A substantial Grade II-listed six-bedroom detached residence with an abundance of original features, set in beautifully landscaped mature gardens.

For sale with Robin Jessop. See more pictures and details for this property.

Somerset — £1,250,000

An effortlessly charming Grade II-listed, 16th century farmhouse with great character and serene gardens. There are 2.5 acres of grounds and more land available should you need it.

For sale with Roderick Thomas. See more pictures and details for this property.

Kent — £650,000

A beautiful four double bedroom cottage that's been recently refurbished to a lovely standard, set in landscaped gardens.

For sale with Sandersons. See more pictures and details for this property.

Cornwall — £750,000

A beautifully-secluded home set amid wraparound gardens in a village — a village with a railway station — just inland from the coast and near St Austell.

For sale with Stags. See more pictures and details for this property.

Leicestershire — £875,000

An elegant five-bedroom, double-fronted home with a range of original features that gets better and better the more you look.

For sale with Bentons. See more pictures and details for this property.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

There are few places in the British Isles that are more beautiful than the West Coast of Scotland. I say that, because I have been to most places in the British Isles. It is one of those areas I keep an eye on, with a view towards retirement, should I ever A) be able to and B) have enough money to buy a nice house in the area.

Assuming I could retire today and had about £1.5 million lying around, I would be severely tempted by Raera Farm near Oban. It’s with Galbraith for £1.495 million and it has anything and everything a (theoretically) retired man of leisure could need.

At the centre of it all is the farmhouse, which features five bedrooms and has been tastefully modernised in recent years, by the family that have owned it since 1934. A particular highlight is the recently added sunroom and kitchen area, with modern fittings and glorious amounts of glass letting the light in. 

The rest of the house is made of traditional stone and dates back to the early 1700s, and is situated a short distance from Euchar Glen and surrounded by open pasture and woodland.

Indeed, the property sits in some 355 acres of pasture, upland grazing and woodland. Despite the wilderness that surrounds it, the property is well connected, with Oban, the ‘Gateway to the Isles’, 9 miles to the north. Always important to know where your nearest pint of milk is in this part of the world.

But that wilderness has not just caught the eye of the family that owns it, but also various films and tv programmes. The waterfall scene from 1969’s Ring of Bright Water was filmed on Raera Farm, as were parts of the 1971 film Kidnapped. The ancient woodland also featured on BBC Autumnwatch, while filmmaker and photographer Simon King has visited to catch salmon jumping the waterfall that’s a short distance from the house.

Did I mention that there’s salmon fishing? How could I forget. The property comes with 1.74 miles of single-bank fishing on the River Euchar, and has the potential for other sporting opportunities, if that kind of thing is your cup of tea.

There are a range of farm buildings that could be converted for different purposes, with the necessary consents, while a two-storey cottage already exists on site that has been split into two holiday let apartments.

Basically, there is lots to do here and lots to see. A perfect spot to get away from it all.

Raera Farm is for sale with Galbraith for £1.495 million. For more information and pictures, click here

Credit: Lillicrap Chilcott/Jefferys

A four bedroom house on the River Fowey that rose from the ruins of the English Civil War

Grade II-listed Stannary House offers peaceful Cornish living and plenty of historical provenance.

Sporting enthusiasts prepared to take a gamble should look to the South Downs National Park, where tidy, compact Leith House is up for sale. Set in 22 acres of post-and-railed paddocks, woodland and grazing, it’s located near the pretty village of South Harting, 4½ miles from Petersfield and 11½ miles from the Roman city of Chichester. The Haslemere office of Strutt & Parker quotes a guide price of £2.75m. It is also, at least in the memory of the current team, the first house we've featured which comes with its own skateboard stunt park.

Built in the style of a traditional Sussex farmhouse after the Second World War, the house has been cleverly modernised by the current owners.

It offers some 3,700sq ft of bright and cheerful accommodation on three floors, including a fitted Neptune kitchen/breakfast room and spacious living areas.

There is a pleasant sitting room with an adjoining games room, five bedrooms and five bath/shower rooms. An attached self-contained annexe is currently used as groom’s accommodation.

The property boasts far-reaching downland views and extensive equestrian facilities, with direct access to the bridleways of the national park. The existing facilities comprise a main yard with nine stables, a tack room, store and good-sized barn.

A further stable block with seven stables and garden stores now needs restoring or converting to an alternative use.

One of the barns, as mentioned above, has already been so converted: inside lies not bales of hay or old machinery, but a series of ramps and jumps for skateboarding and BMX riding.

Meanwhile, the owners have lodged a pre-planning application with South Downs National Park, which, if successful, would allow for the demolition and re-siting of the existing house, the demolition of the redundant stable block, plus the erection of a replacement dwelling and a covered manège to create a model equestrian operation. Further details are available from the selling agents.

For sale via Strutt & Parker — see more pictures and details.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

For Christopher Dewe of Knight Frank’s country department, his native county of Herefordshire is a cherished piece of Olde England, although it’s no coincidence that a recent addition to his portfolio, the enchanting Paunton Court, set in 52 acres of gardens, orchards, woodland and paddocks on the banks of the Frome at Bishops Frome, 10 miles from Ledbury and Malvern, is perhaps more evocative of an idyllic corner of la vieille France.

Acquired as ‘a wreck’ by its present owners on their return from that country in 2005, the charming, Grade II-listed, 16th/17th-century former farmhouse with its farm buildings, cottage, outbuildings and productive small vineyard, has been transformed into a picturesque working farmstead reminiscent of a rustic Normandy manoir.

Now for sale through Knight Frank at a guide price of £3.25m, the main house offers more than 9,000sq ft of colourful living space on three floors, including an impressive vaulted drawing room, three further reception rooms, an office, kitchen/breakfast room, principal bedroom suite with a dressing room, bathroom and study, seven further bedrooms, four bathrooms and a playroom.

The cottage in the main courtyard is ideal for staff accommodation or overflow guest space and currently houses a wine-tasting room and shop. Period outbuildings include a large, double-height threshing barn built of 15th-century timbers and a range of storerooms, stables and workshops.

A 2,300sq ft modern agricultural barn houses a biomass boiler, with an adjoining barn currently used as a cider house. Beyond the main courtyard and buildings is a walled kitchen garden, with well-tended vegetable beds, espalier trees and a fruit cage, alongside a home orchard of mature fruit trees, including apples, pears, plums and an almond tree.

This being hop and cider country, the enterprise includes a 6½-acre cider orchard and an established 11½-acre hop yard, let to a neighbour on a five-year agricultural tenancy. A 3½-acre vineyard established in the 1990s by the previous owner has been developed by the present incumbent as a thriving small business producing 6,000–8,000 bottles a year, depending on the harvest.

Vinification is organised with a local contract winemaker in Ledbury and produce is sold through the owner’s website, summer tours and tastings at a number of well-established food and drinks festivals in the region.

Paunton Court is for sale with Knight Frank for £3.25 million. For more information and pictures, click here

Credit: Sotheby's International Realty

A tale of two cities: Former home of Charles Dickens on Hanover Terrace comes up for sale

His portrayals of London in his literature may have been bleak, but his summer home in the city was anything

Five magnificent country homes for sale, from a palatial Georgian masterpiece to an equestrian dream home in Hertfordshire

Our look at the finest homes to appear on the market via Country Life this week.

Credit: Chris Curl

A remarkable Edwardian country house in one of Herefordshire's most enviable locations hits the market for the first time

Whitney Court stands in the glorious Wye Valley and has been in the hands of the same family for more

Credit: Killens

A castle folly in Weston-super-Mare from which to relax and enjoy views of the Severn Estuary

The aptly named Castle House is a unique three-bedroom home that's been recently refurbished and comes with all the crenellations

This week in homes with preposterously large rooms, we are heading down to Herstmonceux in East Sussex, for something extremely exciting. Now, you might be thinking that this home looks like it has a perfectly normal roof. But have you had a look at the roof to the rear of the property? 

Now that’s a big roof. As well as that glorious tiled toupé, there is much to love at this property on Chilsham Lane. For sale with John D Wood & Co. for offers over £1.25 million, the property is listed Grade II, dates from the early 17th century and is glorious both inside and outside. 

Arranged over three floors, the accommodation offers five bedrooms, three bathrooms and four sitting rooms over some 4,500sq ft, and is elegantly presented in a frame of period beauty, with exposed beams aplenty. Here are some exposed beams in a bedroom.

Here are some exposed beams in another bedroom.

Here are some exposed beams in the office. And sitting room. And so on. 

That’s to say nothing of the beautiful fireplaces and the leaded windows. There is also a wonderful ‘garden hall’, a pantry and boot room. As Sussex farmhouses go, this one is straight on the money.

Outside, the property is approached by a sweeping drive, and is surrounded by large lawns bordered by mature trees. The gardens boast a deer proof vegetable garden (my mother will say no such thing exists, but I digress), a paved seating area perfect for alfresco dining and a wonderful pond, complete with fountain and waterfall.

We cannot, of course, forget the pleasant views of the surrounding countryside. All in all, about 6.3 acres.

The property also comes with planning permission for an existing outbuilding, currently used as a workshop/garden store, into a holiday let, and also permission to build a three-bay garage and a traditional greenhouse. There is also permission for a tractor and implement store, should you have any tractors or implements.

The village of Herstmonceux is 1.5 miles away, providing a range of shops and a primary school, while Polegate mainline station is 8 miles away, providing speedy access to London Victoria and London Bridge.

Chilsham Green Farm is for sale with John D Wood for offers over £1.25 million. For more information and pictures, click here

A Scottish island with beaches, castle and farmhouse that's for sale at the price of a two-bedroom London flat

There comes a time in a house buyer's life when they need to ask themselves a question: 839 sq ft

Seven gorgeous country homes, from £350k to £4.5m, as seen in Country Life

A Tudor home in Buckinghamshire and a superb Cumbrian mansion are among this week's highlights in our round-up of homes

Credit: Savills

An exquisite, completely refurbished Georgian country house with grandeur, beauty and a brilliant treehouse

Harptree Court is a stunning west country home up for sale. Penny Churchill takes a look.

I like Suffolk. I like it for many reasons, but probably one of the most important is that I grew up there. There are also other reasons. There aren’t too many hills, so walking around it is quite easy. I like the miles and miles of colourful farmland. It has a beautiful coast. It also has some of the nicest houses and churches in the country, due to the immense wealth it generated in the Middle Ages. One only needs to look at the houses of towns and villages such as Lavenham to see what I mean.

A house that looks like it could be in Lavenham, but is not in Lavenham, is Elms Farm, near the market town of Halesworth. It is for sale via auction at a starting price of £565,000, with Abbotts, and it is glorious. 

Behold the pink exterior, the external beams, the fact that it’s a bit slanty. This is pure Suffolk heritage through and through. It also comes with an acre of gardens.

Originally built in the 12th century and later extended in the 15th, the property is listed Grade II*. It’s set over three floors and offers three bedrooms. The entrance hall/dining room resembles a mediaeval banqueting hall.

One thing Elms Farm is not short of is character and period charm. Just look at all those beams, the stone floors and the fireplaces. According to the agents, the property is believed to be one of two in the UK that still has Queen Beams.

Thankfully, the current owners have made efforts to modernise the property where it’s needed. The kitchen, for example, has been freshly refurbished and the bathrooms have also been updated.

Outside, the gardens extend to an acre and are mostly laid to lawn, while an outbuilding can be used as garaging or extra storage space. 

Elms Farm is for sale with Abbotts via auction for a starting price of £565,000. For more information and pictures, click here

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

Seven gorgeous country homes, from £350k to £4.5m, as seen in Country Life

A Tudor home in Buckinghamshire and a superb Cumbrian mansion are among this week's highlights in our round-up of homes

Credit: Savills

An exquisite, completely refurbished Georgian country house with grandeur, beauty and a brilliant treehouse

Harptree Court is a stunning west country home up for sale. Penny Churchill takes a look.

Waterside homes are cheaper than they have been in years — but it won't last

Now is the time to buy a house by the water, according to research conducted exclusively for Country Life by

There’s a two-bedroom flat for sale in Holland Park at the moment.

It’s a nice-looking place, with all sorts of things people like in west London flats: high ceilings, big windows, and communal gardens. It even has a very long lease, which runs until almost the year 3,000AD, assuming that both the human race and our general respect for contract law lasts that long.

The problem is that it costs £1.5 million, despite being less than 850sq ft: it has two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen-reception room.

The island of Torsa, meanwhile, has the same £1.5m price tag attached, and has 11,796,048 sq ft.

That’s quite a lot more square foot, and such a big number that it’s just as well that the agents, Savills, quote it as 270.8 acres in the details.

It’s a magnificently beautiful spot just off the coast of Argyll, a little south of Oban on the west coast of Scotland. It’s almost but not quite attached to Luing, a larger island which features settlements named things like Tobernochy and Kilchattan. Torsa itself is a delight, with beaches and hills (maximum elevation: 62m).

It even has a wonderful name — which translates as ‘Thor's Island’ — and interesting history, with a prettily ruined castle called ‘Casteal nan Con’ (the Dogs' Castle), which has been occupied over its history by Clan Campbell, the MacDougalls and Clan MacLean.

We know what you’re probably thinking: what good is an island with a castle if it offers wild camping once you arrive? Well, that would be a good question, but as it happens Torsa has a lot more than just glorious nature and endless views. It has a gorgeous old farmhouse dating to the mid-19^th century, but much improved and modernised — it’s used as a holiday let as present — as well as a range of outbuildings which, while in a poor state, could easily be improved and used as further accommodation, subject to planning consent.

All that’s not enough? Torsa actually comes with a couple of spare islands thrown into the deal: Torsa Beag and Eilean na h-Eaglaise.

And if even that doesn’t sway you? Well, there’s a nice little flat in Holland Park I heard about recently. I’m sure I’ve still got the details somewhere.

Torsa Island is being sold by Savills for £1.5 million — see more pictures and details.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

Few people spend three and a half decades in a house unless they truly love it, and often as not that warmth of feeling pours back out of the house and gardens. Such is the case with Grove House in Semley, a few miles from the Dorset town of Shaftesbury, and surrounded by the lush pastureland of the Cranborne Chase National Landscape.

James McKillop of Savills quotes a guide price of £4.25m for Grove House, which, for the past 33 years, has been a cherished family home.

Built of stone under a slate roof, this handsome, mid- to late-19th-century country house, which, although unlisted, is undeniably Georgian in spirit, if not in name.

The vendors bought the house, set in 20 acres of farmland, in 1990 as a near ‘blank canvas’ and have since planted trees, re-designed the gardens and created the garden rooms that provide a perfect backdrop.

Beyond the barns, the walled garden has been landscaped to accommodate a hard tennis court, heated swimming pool and stone-flagged terrace, with espaliered fruit trees lining the walls to create an ambience of seclusion and tranquillity.

Much of the remaining land is down to pasture, with the exception of an outdoor sand arena that supports the stables, and various belts of woodland, a lake and hidden duck pond further enhance the amenity and diversity of this enchanting small estate.

The same well-planned and understated approach is evident throughout the main house, which offers 4,780sq ft of accommodation on two floors with a useful annexe that can be accessed independently or integrated with the rest of the house.

The central reception hall was added early on to create a sense of arrival with double-height ceilings and a galleried landing above.

The second major improvement was the addition of the superb kitchen/breakfast/family room, which boasts large sash windows, two sets of French doors and a hexagonal cupola above that ensures the maximum passage of light into the room.

In addition, Grove House offers three south-facing reception rooms, a study, principal bedroom with a bathroom en suite, five further bedrooms, a dressing room and two further bathrooms.

Grove House is for sale at £4.25m — see more details and pictures.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

It's Friday lunchtime at Babington House in Somerset and among the mini-breakers enviably horizontal beside the pool are locals savvy enough to have bagged a property near enough for a lunch-break dip. Eighty-five miles north-east at Nick Jones’s Oxfordshire outpost, Soho Farmhouse, it’s the same story; members close enough to Great Tew sneak in for a crab linguine in the Hay Barn before dashing back for 2pm calls. The spring research by Knight Frank has shown that houses within a mile of Britain’s top-tier countryside members’ clubs exchange hands in an average of 19.1 weeks, compared with more than 21½ weeks for those six to seven miles away.

‘For every 10 buyers that contact us with a budget of £1 million to £2 million, half mention a desire to be in close proximity to one of the country clubs, either Soho Farmhouse or Daylesford and, now, Estelle Manor [pictured, which opened last year],’ says Knight Frank’s Damian Gray, a regional partner in the Oxford office. ‘Ten years ago, the normal calls were with criteria to be near a certain school or station. We still get those calls, but they’re also likely to mention one of the clubs — it’s become as important as the commute.’

Those hankering after a property in the heart of country clubland tend to be moving from London in their forties or fifties, says Mr Gray, and members’ clubs ‘offer a little bit of what they’ve had before. They’re smart, exclusive and a hub for work and socialising’.

Ten countryside members’ clubs were analysed in the study — Phyllis Court, Soho Farmhouse and Estelle Manor in Oxfordshire; Wentworth Club, Foxhills and Beaverbrook in Surrey; Linden Hall in Northumberland; Babington House in Somerset; 10 Castle Street in Dorset and South Lodge in West Sussex — with the duration between listing and exchange for properties near to each of them calculated in comparison with those further away and the results averaged. However, anecdotally, it is the new golden triangle from Soho Farmhouse across to Daylesford and down to Estelle Manor, as well as the enduring lure of Babington House and The Newt in Somerset, where the appeal of the clubs is most stark.

Buyers are not always overt about this draw, says Savills’s high-value country house specialist Crispin Holborow. ‘They don’t want to be seen as a slave to a particular club, but part of our job is to tease that sort of thing out of them. Once you’ve talked about schools and other attractions to the area, they might then mention they want to be near Soho Farmhouse.’

However, for Sue Macey, a managing partner at Lodestone, which has offices in Bruton and Wells, the longstanding Babington House (Mr Jones’s first country retreat, opened in 1998) and the more recent The Newt (brainchild of South African hoteliers Koos Bekker and Karen Roos, which opened in 2019) are bonuses for buyers, rather than drivers. ‘Most of our clients are moving down for lifestyle reasons; for the schools, for commuting now we don’t have to do it five days a week [trains from Castle Cary run to London Paddington in 1hr 40mins] and for proximity to Bath and Bristol,’ says Mrs Macey. ‘Yes, we’re very lucky to have Babington and The Newt, but if they weren’t here, I don’t think it would stop anybody from moving down.’

Mr Gray estimates that buyers can expect to pay an extra 10%–15% to be within easy reach of the best clubs, yet the hike can’t always be directly attributed to them. ‘The clubs are in some of the best areas of the country anyway, so you’re paying a premium already,’ he explains. But the houses in their wake certainly don’t stick around for long — each club serving as a tempting beacon of sophistication for buyers taking a plunge into country life.

Three homes near the Cotswolds clubs

Oxfordshire, £2.75 million

Just over a 15-minute drive (eight miles) from Soho Farmhouse, Grade II-listed Manor Farmhouse is in the popular village of Bloxham, with five bedrooms, a home office and gym and outdoor swimming pool.

Refurbished by the current owners, period features abound with open fireplaces, sash windows and flagstone floors. For sale via Savills

Somerset, £1.25 million

An oasis tucked away in the centre of Bruton, just over three miles from The Newt, The Courtyard has been recently restored to offer four/five bed-rooms, with a south-facing garden, private terrace and off-street parking.

https://countrylife.onthemarket.com/details/14722017/

In the stand-out open-plan kitchen and dining room is an island made from reclaimed doors, bespoke units and a parquet floor. For sale via Lodestone

Oxfordshire, £2.8 million

Less than two miles from Estelle Manor, The Malt House is a Grade II-listed manor farmhouse on a no-through lane set in 1¾ acres. It has five/six bedrooms, a large, vaulted kitchen, games room, outdoor swimming pool and outbuildings. Long Hanborough’s mainline station to London Paddington (65 minutes) is 1½ miles away. For sale via Knight Frank

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

In north-east Essex, Bruce King of Cheffins in Saffron Walden quotes a guide price of £1.675m for the charming, Grade II-listed Byeballs Farm, which sits in 1¾ acres of gardens in the tiny picturesque hamlet of Tindon End, 20 minutes’ drive from the pretty market town of Saffron Walden.

With parts of the impeccably restored, six-bedroom farmhouse dating from the 12th century, Byeballs Farm is said to be one of the oldest privately owned properties in the area. The house was lovingly renovated by the current owners, who bought it more than 20 years ago and took great care to preserve its original medieval and Tudor character.

An ancient panelled front door leads into a vast hall, which dates from the 1500s, from where steps lead, via a study and music room, to a pretty sitting room lined throughout with medieval murals.

A corridor on the other side of the hall leads to a snug, a separate study and a dining room, which together form the 12th-century part of the house. The corridor leads on to an impressive vaulted kitchen, which was added by the current owners.

Behind an old Tudor door, a sweeping staircase leads to three first-floor bedrooms and two bathrooms, with two further bedrooms up another flight of stairs in what was once the servants’ quarters.

The grounds at Byeballs Farm are no less appealing. Outside the kitchen is a smart swimming pool with a gym and outdoor seating area and, to the side of the pool, what remains of the original moat still attracts wildlife throughout the year.

On the other side of the house, the gardens include wooded areas, an orchard and sweeping lawns, with about 1,000 daffodils flowering every spring. A further five acres of land is available by separate negotiation.

Byeballs Farm is for sale with Cheffins for £1.675 million. For more information and pictures, click here

Credit: Strutt and Parker

A seven-bedroom home near Wimbledon that will make all your modernist fantasies come true

Designed by Maxwell Fry, Miramonte is a delightful 1930s building situated in one of London's most enviable locations. It also

Credit: Inigo

A 300-year-old Jacobean mansion that comes with woodland, orchard and its own mini-village

Frome is where the heart is, so they say. It's easy to see why you might fall in love with

Credit: Hamptons

A 400-year-old house that’s as romantic a country cottage as you could hope to find

How many kinds of sweet flowers grow in an English country garden? Well, head to these magical gardens in Kent

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

On Exmoor, Alice Keith of Knight Frank is handling the sale of Emmetts Grange near Simonsbath, Somerset, a handsome, Grade II-listed Georgian farmhouse with outstanding equestrian facilities set in 894 acres of pasture, ancient moorland and woodland in the heart of the national park.

She quotes a guide price of £6.5m for the estate, which, she observes, ‘currently operates a successful holiday letting business, is free of commoners’ rights and represents a diverse natural capital asset of considerable ecological and environmental value’.

Recently renovated by the current owners, Emmetts Grange retains many fine period features, including large open fireplaces, ornate plasterwork and traditional sash windows.

The accommodation, said to be ‘in good order’, includes a series of lovely, south-facing reception rooms, nine bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a ground-floor studio annexe.

It comes with four holiday cottages and state-of-the-art equestrian facilities: these include 18 stables, split between the traditional courtyard behind the house and a brand new livery unit with Monarch stabling within an American-style barn, plus a new 60m by 20m (about 195ft by 65ft) indoor school.

In August 1818, the agricultural pioneer John Knight bought the 10,262-acre former royal Forest of Exmoor and began what was to be the largest single land-reclamation ever undertaken in England. He already had family connections with the area through the Bampfields, who were lords of the manor of nearby North Molton and owned valuable ancient grazing rights over the forest.

Knight later increased his Exmoor holding by purchasing surrounding land. He then built a 29-mile-long, stock-proof, stone-faced wall around the entire estate and embarked on the enormous task of reclaiming the rough grazing of the high moors for arable production. He also built two farmsteads either side of his own house at Simonsbath, previously the only residence in the forest.

In 1836, Knight launched a lawsuit against various family members in a bid to recover the estates of his father’s first cousin, Richard Payne Knight of Downton Castle, Herefordshire, but lost the case. It is thought that his fury at losing such a large inheritance may have prompted him to retire to Italy, which he did in 1842, leaving his eldest son, Frederick, to complete his work on Exmoor.

A Conservative MP from 1841 to 1885 and a keen hunting man, Col Sir Frederick Winn Knight went on to build 15 more farmsteads where, instead of farming in-hand, he installed tenant farmers who paid him rent.

The grandest of these was Emmetts Grange, at 1,250ft the highest farmhouse on Exmoor. According to its Historic England listing, it was built in about 1850 and is the best surviving example of the houses built on Exmoor by the Knight family.

Emmetts Grange is for sale via Knight Frank — see more details and pictures.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

The ancient Wiltshire parish of Woodford lies between Salisbury and Amesbury on the western side of the River Avon, bounded on the east by the winding course of the river and on the west by the old turnpike road from Salisbury to Devizes, now the A360. It's a well-trodden part of the country, partly due to its proximity to the A303 from London to the West Country, and especially because this is the nearest village to Stonehenge. 

The land rises sharply from some 200ft above sea level in the valley to about 400ft at the top of the down. The land on the slopes is mainly pasture and, in the valley, the famous chalkstream runs fast and deep. For centuries, it was fished by permission of the lords of the manors of Woodford and Heale.

It’s a tranquil pastoral setting where, according to the Victoria County History (1962), ‘the most notable event in the history of the parish occurred in 1651, when Charles II took refuge at Heale House during his flight from Cromwell’s army after the battle of Worcester’.

Undisturbed by housing development in the 19th and 20th centuries, the relatively small number of good houses available along the picturesque valley is much sought after nowadays by country-house buyers from Salisbury and further afield.

Oliver Custance Baker of Strutt & Parker quotes a guide price of £4.5 million for the charming Moor Hatches, a converted former 18th-century farmstead set in six acres of formal walled gardens, kitchen garden and orchards at the head of the valley.

The house, which is unlisted, lies within the UNESCO Stonehenge World Heritage site — walk down the path, cross the road, and you'll get to the stones themselves. And as if that's not idyllic enough it's also bounded by the River Avon, which runs along the bottom of the garden.

Built of brick and flint under a clay-tiled roof, the former farmhouse, barns and an older non-conformist chapel were combined in the 1930s to create a significant, 4,850sq ft country house, which has been thoroughly and tastefully modernised by its current owners.

It offers light and airy accommodation on three floors, including an entrance hall, three reception rooms, a family kitchen/breakfast room, a principal bedroom suite, six further bedrooms and three bathrooms.

The main house incorporates a two-bedroom staff cottage and comes with planning consent for a two-storey extension to provide an office, gymnasium, car barn and garden store, with a one-bedroom annexe on the first floor.

As Mr Custance-Baker sagely observes, ‘a beautiful country home is as much about its setting as its bricks and mortar’. Moor Hatches lacks nothing in this regard, being one of only a handful of gardens in the UK where the entire design has been overseen by internationally renowned landscape designer Tom Stuart-Smith.

Here, he has created a naturalistic garden in three distinct parts: the first is a formal courtyard area in front of the house, which explodes into a sea of tulips in spring; the second is a two-level walled garden with a swimming pool at its centre; finally, an open lawn and wildflower meadow leads down to the river bank, where a number of ponds and rivulets create what is described as ‘a wonderful maze-like area of watery wanderings, a sanctuary for both people and wildlife’.

Alternatively, why not while away the day at the end of a line? Fishing rights on the prestigious River Avon are included in the sale.

Moor Hatches is for sale with Strutt and Parker for £4.5 million. For more information and pictures, click here

Credit: Fine and Country

Red-brick walls, a thatched roof, a barn and an EPC rating of A. This home of the future in Dorset looks suspiciously like the past

At Godwins House near Christchurch, tradition and modernity embrace to create exquisite results.

Credit: Knight Frank

For sale for the first time in 50 years, an unlisted Sussex farmhouse surrounded by a 'thriving 117-acre nature reserve'

https://www.knightfrank.com/properties/residential/for-sale/wards-lane-wadhurst-east-sussex-tn5/CHO180010

Credit: Savills

18th century elegance and some 6,500sq ft of space with views over the citadel of Rye

The Victorian elegance of Mountsfield House stands in stark contrast to the town's history of smuggling and piracy.

Credit: Knight Frank

The newest 'Old Rectory' in the world is up for sale, set in ancient woodland, with a cathedral-like pool and its own golf course

In the Weald where Surrey, Sussex and Kent come together, Penny Churchill takes a look at a fascinating house.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

Readers of Country Life the Magazine might know that, in the past, I may have said some unkind things about the London Borough of Fulham. This comes from a mis-spent youth south of the river where, far too often, I would make the journey to SW6 to see friends and bemoan the lack of public transport and the expensive pubs. I also dislike Chelsea Football Club.

However, upon casting my gaze upon the delicately named Rose Cottage on Crabtree Lane, I might have to eat some humble pie. For sale with Radstock Property for £3.75 million, this might be, might be, the nicest house I’ve ever seen for sale in London. 

The phrase rus-in-urbe is tossed around with reckless abandon, much like a rugby ball on Parsons Green, but at Rose Cottage, we might have finally found a property worthy of the title. With a garden of an acre, this late-17th-century property will really make you feel like you’ve escaped to the countryside, all while being a few minutes’ walk away from The River Café. That’s about as good as it gets.

The property used to be the farmhouse for the Crabtree orchards, but in recent years has been the home of architects who have updated and renovated the property with care to create a charming family home. The main property boasts four bedrooms over its two floors, while a more modern detached annexe to the rear of the property offers two further bedrooms. There is also a detached art studio of some 182sq ft to the front of the property.

Entered via Crabtree Lane, a walk through a mature front garden leads to the front door. On the ground floor you will find a sitting room with an open fire, a kitchen, a delightful conservatory and the fourth bedroom (or study). 

The annexe, as mentioned, offers two further bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, a playroom, an office, a kitchenette and a sauna.

Separating the two buildings is the 77ft long garden, which offers an oasis of calm. Features include a pergola covered dining area, a built-in barbecue area and a vast expanse of lawn, surrounded on the edges with mature borders and specimen trees. 

If all that green space wasn’t enough (and, in central London, it should be), Rose Cottage provides easy access to Bishops Park and the Thames Path, with plenty of excellent local shops and cafés (River or otherwise) nearby. Hammersmith tube station is also well within walking distance.

Rose Cottage is for sale with Radstock Property. For more information, call 020—3876 0280

Credit: Strutt and Parker

A gorgeous farmhouse next door to Stonehenge with a gardens by an iconic Chelsea gold medal winner

at Moor Hatches, while away the hours fishing on the Avon, enjoying the amazing gardens, or exploring this seven bedroom

Credit: Savills

Live and let live in the gorgeous former monastery that's been home to everyone from iconic Bond girls to legends of music

Jane Seymour bought this stunning house a few years after becoming one of the most celebrated Bond girls in the

Credit: Fine and Country

Red-brick walls, a thatched roof, a barn and an EPC rating of A. This home of the future in Dorset looks suspiciously like the past

At Godwins House near Christchurch, tradition and modernity embrace to create exquisite results.

Credit: Knight Frank

For sale for the first time in 50 years, an unlisted Sussex farmhouse surrounded by a 'thriving 117-acre nature reserve'

https://www.knightfrank.com/properties/residential/for-sale/wards-lane-wadhurst-east-sussex-tn5/CHO180010

There’s something immensely reassuring about seeing a house that looks like an old house but is, in fact, a new house. I like modern homes, somewhat scandalously considering where I work. I like glass, and modernism, and clean lines, and underfloor heating. I like those kitchens that don’t really look like kitchens where everything is hidden away. I also, however, like new houses that look like old houses.

Take Godwins House, surrounded by paddocks and woodland within Waterditch, a small rural hamlet in Dorset. For sale with Fine and Country for £3 million, it is, as you might have deduced, a charming red brick family home under a thatched roof situated in some pleasant gardens and grounds. It is also brand new!

Yes, this is a new-build house, which, considering what pops into my head when I read or hear the word ‘New Build’ is very exciting. It goes to show that they don’t all have to be featureless brick boxes on the edge of towns. Yes it’s £3 million, but also, it is proof that the sympathetic new-build is possible. Rejoice.

Thankfully, for your £3 million you get not one, but two properties — the aforementioned Godwins House in all its brick-built EPC-rated-A glory, and an attached converted barn. Together, they provide six bedrooms on three acres land. If all that isn’t enough, there are also garaging and stables and planning permission for a large master bedroom and a larger utility room. There is also no chain. Nothing but the hits at this place.

The interiors have been finished to a sublime standard, continuing the theme of the entire property, mixing modern comforts with traditional styles. A particular highlight is the triple aspect kitchen/dining/family room, in which folding doors open the full length of two sides to seamlessly blend the interior and exterior.

And what an exterior it is. As mentioned, the gardens and grounds are 3 acres in total, and are mostly laid to lawn with hard and soft landscaping, surrounded by paddocks and countryside. The rear garden also slopes down to a small stream. A patio area with pergola provides the perfect space for al fresco dining, with an outdoor fire and chimney, as well as a soundsystem.

And that EPC rating of A is not to be sniffed at either. The property benefits from its own sewage treatment plant, air source heat pump, a solar-power system, battery storage and an EV car charger. All the new, in a blanket of the old.

Godwins House is for sale for £3 million with Fine and Country. For more information and pictures, click here.

To take a video tour, click here

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

Credit: Knight Frank

For sale for the first time in 50 years, an unlisted Sussex farmhouse surrounded by a 'thriving 117-acre nature reserve'

https://www.knightfrank.com/properties/residential/for-sale/wards-lane-wadhurst-east-sussex-tn5/CHO180010

Credit: Savills

18th century elegance and some 6,500sq ft of space with views over the citadel of Rye

The Victorian elegance of Mountsfield House stands in stark contrast to the town's history of smuggling and piracy.

22 superb homes for sale from £260k to £15 million, as seen in Country Life

From huge estates to delightful cottages, there really is something for anyone thinking of moving to the country.

The picturesque setting of Newbarn on the banks of the Bewl Water, three miles from Wadhurst on the Kent/East Sussex border and nine miles from Tunbridge Wells, is almost entirely manmade. The 770-acre Bewl Water reservoir was created between 1973 and 1975 by damming the valley of the River Bewl, a tributary of the Teise, and flooding it with more than 31,300 million litres of water, during which time land was compulsorily purchased and farms relocated, leaving buildings and ancient lanes submerged beneath the surface.

Surrounded by a thriving 117-acre nature reserve — a haven for birds and wildlife — the lake is home to a wide range of aquatic sports, with numerous woodland paths providing endless opportunities for cycling, walking or riding.

For sale for the first time since Bewl Water was built, Newbarn, which is unlisted, is an enchanting Sussex farmhouse set in the middle of 14 acres of gardens and paddocks that slope gently down to the water’s edge, to which it has private access. Selling agents Knight Frank quote a guide price of £4.25m for the 4,208sq ft main house, which dates from 1720, and offers light and airy accommodation on four floors, including four reception rooms, a principal bedroom suite, five further bedrooms and two bathrooms.

‘It was a very different picture that confronted my parents when, in 1977, they bought the neglected farmhouse, previously home to the manager of the nearby Whiligh estate,’ says Miriam Bentsen, the present owner, who recalls her own idyllic childhood at Newbarn.

It took her parents 10 years or more to restore the farmhouse, oast houses and buildings, and when, years later, she and her husband, Morten, were desperately looking for a place in the country where they could keep horses, they decided to buy her parents’ house.

Over the next 20 years or more, their children enjoyed the same Swallows and Amazons experience, swimming, sailing, windsurfing and paddle-boarding on Bewl Water, riding through the woods or whizzing around the farm on quad bikes. Now that their offspring are almost on their way, the time has come for the Bentsens to move on, although Mrs Bentsen is dreading the day when they have to leave ‘this wonderfully peaceful and quiet place, where the only sound you hear is birdsong, the rustle of wind in the trees, or the drone of the occasional aeroplane’.

Newbarn is for sale with Knight Frank for £4.25 million. For more information and pictures, click here

22 superb homes for sale from £260k to £15 million, as seen in Country Life

From huge estates to delightful cottages, there really is something for anyone thinking of moving to the country.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

Credit: Knight Frank

The newest 'Old Rectory' in the world is up for sale, set in ancient woodland, with a cathedral-like pool and its own golf course

In the Weald where Surrey, Sussex and Kent come together, Penny Churchill takes a look at a fascinating house.

Credit: Getty

‘A buzz in the air’ as housing market activity picks up

The economic picture may be uncertain at times and the poor weather this year hasn’t exactly helped. But things appear

There is much that I want to say but can’t with regards to the day I have had. Mondays are tough, especially if you are someone in your early 30s who still drinks (and there are fewer and fewer of us, probably for the best), but the agonies of tasting real freedom on a Saturday and Sunday, only to be returned to the crashing thump of adult life, can be overwhelming.

Suddenly, the many emails that you have been ignoring for 48 hours can be avoided no longer, and as you desperately cast your eye around the home in which you work, in a vain attempt to briefly disconnect, all you can see is cracks in the walls, and things that need repairing and clothes that need cleaning. And then, a strong breeze blows all your plants off your windowsill and covers you in soil. I often take it upon myself to attempt to bring the countryside to the computers and tablets of the ordinary Londoner, but this was a little too literal, even for me.

Bringing the countryside to the good people of the city should be more like writing about homes like Sarsden Cottage in Sarsden, Oxfordshire. On the market with The Country House Department for the not insignificant sum of £1.75 million, the property is a five-bedroom thatched cottage that looks like it wants to pick you up and cuddle you. The agonies of adult life will find you everywhere, but at Sarsden Cottage, they will hurt a little less.

Situated in the triangle of Chipping Norton, Stow-on-the-Wold and Burford, the village of Sarsden (and its adjoining village Churchill) is about as peak Cotswolds as you can get. There is a nice church. There is a village green. There is a nice pub (The Chequers Inn) and, perhaps most importantly these days, Daylesford Farm Shop and the Soho Farmhouse are a short drive away. 

The property itself dates from the 17th century, although it does benefit from some more recent additions. The current owners have carried out a tasteful refurbishment of the house, creating a home of period elegance that oozes cosiness. Observe the comfortable sitting room and its glorious fireplace. Marvel at the farmhouse style kitchen that is both modern yet traditional. The double aspect garden room, with its enormous french doors and windows, is a particular highlight (I also like the choice of paint colour).

The small garden to the rear is also extremely pleasant. Hardly massive, it is mostly laid to lawn with well stocked beds and shrubs, creating a space that is nice to look at, spend time in, but won’t demand every hour of your free time to maintain. It’s all very well thought out and the kind of welcoming, functional space that might not write its own headlines, but is exactly the kind of calming home I would like to retire to after a day like today.

Sarsden Cottage is for sale with the Country House Department for £1.75 million

A classic Georgian manor house in an ancient hilltop town in the Cotswolds

The Lammas is a spectacular Georgian house in one of the finest spots in the Cotswolds, as Penny Churchill explains.

Credit: Savills and Knight Frank

Six of the best homes in the Cotswolds (or just outside) for sale, as seen in this week's Country Life

If it's more than an hour from the Soho Farmhouse or Daylesford, we don't want to know about it.

Credit: Hamptons

A honey-coloured home in Wiltshire that sits at peace with its landscape

Rock Cottage offers four bedrooms and almost two acres of land in the pristine countryside near Turleigh.

A 'rare and exceptional' medieval estate with an Elizabethan-style house, a string of cottages, and a location an hour from London

The Allexton Hall Estate comes to the market, and Penny Churchill tells its story.

Anyone looking to buy an equestrian property should have Dove House on their shortlist — but even for those who have no interest in horses, it's is an all-singing, all-dancing affair, offering a sought-after combination of picturesque Grade II-listed farmhouse with an annexe, a pair of holiday cottages and a pool. It’s on the market for £2,150,000 via Strutt & Parker.

It's an eye-catching equestrian property set in the village of Semer, Suffolk, just under an hour’s drive from Newmarket, the home of horse racing.

Dating back to the 16th century, Dove House has been carefully-preserved over the years. Its attractive features include exposed beams, wall timbers and oak mullioned windows. But while it may scream ‘historic’, it also comes across as a warm, much-loved home. Who wouldn’t want to curl up with a good book in front of that fabulous inglenook fireplace?

The main house ticks all the boxes: four spacious reception rooms and a large kitchen with AGA. There’s also a utility and boot room, plus a cloakroom — essential rooms in any busy country home. And upstairs, there are five bedrooms, one with an ensuite bathroom, and a family bathroom.

The beams in the ceilings, wooden doors and windows offer gorgeous charm, and make one of the bedrooms feel almost like being inside a medieval tent by a jousting field.

The adjoining annexe has got ‘granny and grandpa’ written all over it. It comprises a kitchen, sitting room, and bedroom with an ensuite. The annexe is reached via a room described by Strutt & Parker as ‘the library / party room’. A party room sounds like jolly good fun to us. But if the grandparents are living in this wing of the house, for the sake of good family relations, a library might be better.

There’s also an opportunity to earn extra income, thanks to two holiday cottages set away from the main house. Though ‘cottage’ suggests that they may be on the cosy side. On the contrary, Stable Cottage and The Old Barn have no less than four bedrooms each. They form a neat courtyard around the swimming pool (which is heated, you’ll be pleased to know).

The pretty, well-kept garden surrounding Dove House is home to mature trees, shrubs and hedges as well as a pergola and aviary. And to the east of the house is a lake stocked with coarse fish; It even has an island in the middle, which you can row out to and pretend you're Robinson Crusoe.

But for very horsey types, the real draw, of course, is the equestrian facilities. Post and rail grazing extends to 22 acres and borders the River Brett to the south (with riparian rights).

There’s also a variety of buildings, with scope to use them for agricultural or equestrian activities, according to Strutt & Parker. They include the main stable block with eight loose boxes as well as a framed barn with another five loose boxes and hard standing.

Sharnie Rogers, Head of Office, Strutt & Parker Essex & Suffolk, says: ‘With a glorious main farmhouse, equestrian facilities, and two holiday cottages, Dove House is truly an "all-rounder" home,' she says.

‘The main house is fantastic in its own right — particularly with its original period features — but the fact that there’s also two four-bedroom holiday lets for income potential, as well as stables and paddocks, is what really sets this country house apart.

‘The house has an enviable position in the Brett Valley and with views across open countryside, along with 22 acres of grounds, you are self-contained and secluded here. Yet it is conveniently only a 30-minute drive of Ipswich.’

Dove House is on the market for £2,150,000 via Strutt & Parker — see more details and pictures.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

What you need to know about buying an equestrian property

Owning a house with land where you can keep and ride your own horses is the dream for equestrians everywhere

Credit: Matt Hillier / Savills

An 18th century gem that's immaculate inside and out, with beautiful interiors, spa pool and outstanding equestrian facilities

Normanby Hill House is a beautiful Georgian house that's one of the best homes for sale right now in North

This grand Georgian home with charming stable block is every equestrian's dream

A fabulous Grade II-listed property and stud farm in Dorset is for sale, with seven bedrooms, swimming pool and tennis

Credit: Savills

A house offering total serenity and seclusion, with outstanding stables and equestrian facilities

The Grove is a former racehorse trainer's home fresh to the market in the idyllic Lincolnshire Wolds.

Credit: Steve Coulthard/ Finest Properties

The 'perfect rural retreat' in County Durham with a self-contained leisure suite and excellent equestrian facilities

The magnificent Sadberge Hall showcases exquisite detail both inside its expansive interiors and outside in the spectacular 41 acre grounds.

Credit: Strutt & Parker

An idyllic Cotswold farmhouse completely immersed in nature that is great for anglers and equestrians alike

Baxters Farm, in the hamlet of Fyfield, is the epitome of a country idyll thanks to its secluded location, inviting

I love barns. You have likely read this before, but I think they combine the very best of all things British, both on the exterior and the interior. I like the idea of re-using old buildings (it is good for the environment and protects our heritage), I like how many of them are unlisted (meaning that designers can get creative with how they lay out the living spaces) and I like how, almost by definition, they combine modern living with (out with the animals, in with the induction hobs) with traditional rural style (thatched roofs, wooden beams, things of that nature).

To West Sussex, where, in Highleigh, Fine and Country have this very spacious and lovely property named Old House Barn for sale for the princely sum of £2.5 million. It’s hard to describe anything that costs that much as a ‘bargain’, but it might be tricky to find a home of this size, in this location, for less.

Some details: the property offers some 5,773sq ft of living space over two floors, which is a lot, and is set to an L-plan. On the ground floor, you will find many nice things, such as a bedroom, a vast kitchen/breakfast room, a gym (accessed via separate walkway), sitting room, office, garage and workshop. 

From the vaulted entrance hall (after all, what good is a barn conversion without a vaulted entrance hall), a staircase and mezzanine leads you up to the first floor, in which you will find four further bedrooms, creating a total of five bedrooms. Glorious.

This is a house that was converted by the current owners and is designed for family living. Don’t take it from me, but rather the agent copy, which reads thusly: ‘Behold, a residence that transcends mere bricks and mortar, offering an exquisitely designed sanctuary for family living’. I can only hope for a similar level of enthusiasm when I sell my two bedroom terraced house in Bermondsey.

The property is situated in the picturesque village of Highleigh, blending the convenience of urban living with the tranquillity of rural life. Old House Barn makes the most of its enviable location, with 1.3 acres of grounds and plenty of open-plan spaces within, enhanced by floor-to-ceiling windows that mean the surrounding countryside can be enjoyed year round, rain or shine.

The gardens are themselves extremely pleasant (‘a verdant oasis of serenity’, per Fine and Country, who clearly quite like this house) with ‘lush’ lawns, patio areas, an outdoor kitchen, a swimming pool and ‘vibrant’ flower borders. What’s not to like.

Old House Barn is for sale with Fine and Country for £2.5 million. For more information and pictures, click here

Credit: DLMPhotography / Jackson-Stops

An oak-timbered home in a picture-perfect Surrey village with pub, church and village hall, and under an hour from central London

Tumbledown Farm in Brockham is exactly the sort of place you're probably thinking of when you think of moving out

A stunning house on the Surrey/Sussex border 'that's more like being in the Scottish Highlands' than the commuter belt

Marley House on Marley Common boasts nine bedrooms and some of the finest views in southern England.

A gorgeous Victorian country house with its own private gate on to Windsor Great Park

A vast expanse of parkland is literally on your doorstep at this charming house, with five bedrooms, a study and

Credit: Knight Frank

One of the 'prettiest little houses in London' for sale, right next door to the house where AA Milne wrote Winnie the Pooh

This property on Mallord Street shares a wall with the home that AA Milne lived in for 21 years and

And now for something completely different. Here, we have the former Cottenham Racecourse near Cottenham in Cambridgeshire. Have you ever wanted to live on a former racecourse? In a former grandstand? Well now you can.

I remember the first time I went racing. I must have been about 12 years old, and it was at a track near my parents house in Essex. Before then, I had been conscious of horse racing only on television, principally the Kentucky Derby when I was younger, and then the Grand National when I’d moved to England.

Here, things were slightly on the smaller scale, but I enjoyed the fact that, in the rich English tradition, I was allowed to gamble as a 12-year-old. I learned a lesson that day, after betting a whole £10 on the favourite for the final race of the day, only to watch it fall at the last fence while in the lead. I still remember the name of the horse.

For sale as a whole with Savills for £2.375 million, or in lots for less than that, is the aptly named Steeple Chase Farm, which consists of 202 acres of land and farm buildings that include the aforementioned racecourse.

Of particular excitement to use here at the Country Life Online Property Desk (CLOPD) is the plans for turning the former grandstand into a four-bedroom home. In 2023, Nick Dakin of Dakin Estates was granted permission on behalf of the vendor to convert the stand into this home, which would also include a home office and garage.

As we can see from the design, it ‘retains a memory of its former use’, per the agents, but also is quite a nice looking family home. We particularly enjoy the tannoys being included in this CGI-generated image, and we hope they will be fully functional, allowing parents to recall their children in the style of an announcer calling a race.

The ground floor of the property will consist of the bedrooms, with en-suites, and a reception room. The first floor will include an open-plan kitchen, dining and living room and a very nice looking terrace.

The majority of the surrounding land, and there is a lot of land, is classified as Grade 2 with ‘areas of Grade I towards the western boundary and Grade 3 towards the southern boundary’. The soils are described as being of the ‘Milton Series’ but are variable, with most being a freely-draining loam with some clay towards the south. That doesn’t mean much to me, but I am not a farmer.

The land also includes plenty of former farm buildings, which could offer potential for conversion and renovation with the correct permissions, and the property is situated equidistant between the village of Cottenham and the village of Waterbeach, which offers a railway station.

Steeple Chase Farm is for sale with Savills for £2.375 million. For more information and pictures, click here

Credit: Symonds and Sampson

A gorgeous house in Devon with 12 acres of land priced at just £250,000... but there is a teeny, tiny catch

Grade II-listed Homebush Cottage might be a shell, but with a little love and renovation, can be returned to its

Credit: Savills/Blue Book

A glorious medieval hall in Norfolk with England's largest brick-built Tudor barn, a moat, and nine acres

At Hales Hall near Norwich, you can live a fairytale life in this seven bedroom home that's positively bursting with

Credit: Shane Webber Photography

A recently refurbished Jacobean hall with 100 acres, a clocktower, lake, gardens and events business

Grade I-listed Dorfold Hall in Cheshire was supposedly built for a visit by James I and is one of the

Credit: Lillicrap Chilcott

An unlisted Arts-and-Crafts home in one of Cornwall's most desirable villages

Ven Ayr in Lelant is a six-bedroom beauty in the village of Lelant that boasts beautiful interiors and south-east facing

The country house property checklist usually starts off with things like ‘pretty’, ‘period charm’, ‘nice garden’ and ‘convenient location’.

But once you’ve got those staples ticked off, you can start to look for the rather more niche attributes. ‘Granny annexe’ is a popular one for those embarking upon the adventure that is multi-generational living; while ‘own vineyard’, while more of a pipe dream, is also a cracker.

How nice, then, to find Dillions Farmhouse, a home which ticks all those boxes and more.

This picturesque property north-east of the village of Staplefield — near Handcross, Cuckfield and Haywards Heath, with its superb rail links to and through London — is a place where you can both make your own wine, and rope in your parents/in-laws to help out on a regular basis by suggesting they might like to move in to the two-bedroom Old Stables Cottage.

Grade II-listed, Dillions Farmhouse and cottage annexe come with gardens extending to 3½ acres, plus the 16¼-acre Dillions Vineyard. They’d happily go together at £3.75 million, but are also listed separately by agents Strutt & Parker: Lot 1, the farmhouse, gardens and cottage, have an asking price of £3.1 million; lot 2, Dillions Vineyard, is up for sale at £650,000.

Originally Tudor, but much extended and refurbished, the main farmhouse has six bedrooms, including a master suite with bathroom, dressing area and walk-in wardrobe.

The aforementioned lovely gardens have been cleverly landscaped to incorporate a cottage-style planting area around an old well, Cotswold-stone gravel paths edged with verbena, roses and Mexican daisies, hedged parterres, a sunken spa pool, an old horse pond fringed with lavender, formal vegetable garden, treehouse and wildflower-rich grassland.

Enough of such trifles, though: the big question is, what type of wine will you be making? And how much will you be able to churn out? Well, the vineyard contains Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Bacchus and Cabaret Noir varieties.

All being well you can apparently expect to grow roughly three tonnes of grapes per acre, which translates into 2,500 bottles; so at Dillions Vineyard, you could be looking at over 40,000 bottles a year.

Dillions Farmouse and Vineyard are for sale via Strutt & Parker at £3.75m — see more details and pictures.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

Launched onto the market this week at a guide price of £5m through Knight Frank, Grade II-listed Dancers End House is classic Queen Anne, built in the early 1700s of chequer-patterned red brick under an old tile roof. Set in almost 17 acres of lovely gardens and grounds with panoramic views over the surrounding valley, it lies close to the Hertfordshire border, 3½ miles from Tring and 14 miles from Amersham station.

Arranged on three storeys with attics and basement, Dancers End House and its traditional courtyard of period barns and outbuildings have been meticulously renovated by the current owners, who conducted the entire operation using local builders and tradesmen, selling agent Edward Welton reveals. The main house provides some 5,800sq ft of light and airy accommodation, including a reception hall, four reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, three bedroom suites and five further bedrooms.

The interiors are a mix of colour and styles, with plenty of contrast between modern spaces such as the kitchen and dining room and the more period styles of the reception rooms and bedrooms. A particular highlight is the large first-floor bathroom with its green colour scheme and matching bath.

The courtyard of buildings has been carefully renovated to provide a large party barn, garaging, a small stable block and a two-bedroom guest/staff cottage. Additional equestrian facilities include nine further loose boxes, a tack room and pole barn.

Inspired by the gardens at Highgrove, those at Dancers End House have been painstakingly created over time, each area having its own story to tell: they include a kitchen garden, a hidden tennis court, pleached lime walk, small croquet lawn (created by the previous owners), parterre garden and water features set against the backdrop of the surrounding landscape.

Dancers End House is for sale with Knight Frank for £4.75 million. For more information and to see more pictures, click here

Additional reporting by James Fisher

A breathtaking Gothic fantasy of a home, with wall-to-wall colour, four-poster beds and a topiary gardener

Ty Mawr near Brecon is a sublime example of the Strawberry Gothic, and comes with its own thriving holiday accommodation

Credit: Savills

Modern elegance in this 6,500sq ft home cut into a hillside in the Kentish Weald

Waterfield House near Cranbrook is an award-winning family home occupying one of the finest positions in the English countryside.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

A Scottish country home near St Andrews that once bred championship winning sheep

Inner Gellie House has a lively history behind its elegant façades, and is looking for a new owner to take

One of Britain's most beautiful waterfalls is for sale — and naturally it comes with a B&B and a tea room

A multi-faceted business at the base of Pistyll Rhaeadr waterfall near Oswestry comes up for sale. Enjoy a slice of

The timber-framed core of Grade II-listed Winkworth Farm at Hascombe, in the redesignated Surrey Hills National Landscape, two miles from Godalming and eight miles from Guildford, dates from the mid 1500s. It started out as a prosperous yeoman’s house and was occupied by yeomen farmers until the death of the last of these, John Baxter, in 1837.

For the next 70-odd years, the house was divided up and used by farm labourers and their families. Extended in about 1774, it was remodelled in 1895 by Sir Edwin Lutyens and extended to the rear by his closest pupil, John Duke Coleridge, in about 1908. In 1914, it was remodelled internally for London solicitor Walter Webb-Ware by Frederic Troup, who also altered the gardens, which had been planted and laid out by Lutyens’s patron and collaborator, Gertrude Jekyll. Lutyens built almost half the present house, although his work was mainly confined to the rear, where the quad — originally a straw yard formed by the house and two barns — was described by Pevsner as ‘unbelievably picturesque’.

Phillippa Dalby-Welsh of Savills country department quotes a guide price of £6.75 million for Winkworth Farm, set in more than 15 acres, in which, from formal gardens, magical grounds run down to a two-acre lake with two islands and a boathouse. Beyond the driveway is a walled vegetable garden and, away from the house, a stable yard, a manège and paddock. A wooded copse, under-planted with snowdrops, daffodils and bluebells, leads down to a babbling stream, which is bridged in parts and flanked with bamboo.

In 1918, Webb-Ware sold Winkworth Farm to Dr Wilfred Stephen Fox, an eminent dermatologist who practised at St George’s Hospital, London. A keen conservationist and a passionate gardener, he acquired the neighbouring 130-acre Thorncombe estate in 1937 and, the following year, began planting an arboretum in the wild Thorncombe Valley near the house with 1,000 species of trees and shrubs that provide glorious displays of colour in spring and autumn.

Inspired by the great landscape gardens of Westonbirt, Sheffield Park, Exbury and Leonardslee, whose owners he knew well, Fox planted trees and shrubs that would achieve a good splash of colour, including springtime species such as magnolias, crabapples and cherries, along with maples, azaleas and a host of other trees and shrubs that are known for their autumn foliage. With the long-term future in mind, he planted 10 different oaks and seven kinds of beech, including the huge southern beeches that are widely admired today.

In 1952, he donated some 65 acres to the National Trust, adding a further 35 acres in 1957. Still run by the Trust with Fox’s vision in mind, Winkworth Arboretum’s 120-odd acres of magnificent woods and lakes remain open to the public and rank high among Surrey’s most popular attractions. Winkworth Farm offers a welcome opportunity to walk or ride out directly from the property, where the surrounding countryside offers some of the most spectacular scenery to be found anywhere in the South of England.

Following Fox’s death in 1962, Winkworth Farm was acquired by the artist and wildlife conservationist David Shepherd, who lived there for ‘39 enormously happy years’, moulding it to his own eccentric taste. Next to the kitchen, he created an early-Victorian shop front, now the pantry, which boasted a bow window, a bell and a wooden, panelled door over which he erected a sign, ‘Winkworth and Daughters 1963’, a tribute to his four daughters.

He later bought an old barn that had been blown down at Parkhurst Farm, Sussex, in the great storm of 1987, and re-erected it for use as his studio. This was connected to the cellar of the main house by an underground tunnel, which he used to ‘commute’ to work, producing his famous paintings of steam trains, elephants, tigers and other African wildlife.

In 2000, Shepherd sold Winkworth Farm to Simon Culmer, a former director of Cisco systems, who reputedly ‘fell in love with the house and garden at first sight’. When he and his wife moved to Hampshire in 2008, he sold Winkworth Farm to the present owners, who have sensitively upgraded the house, installing a Fired Earth kitchen, replacing secondary glazing with an appropriate oak-framed equivalent, fitting new boilers and radiators, insulating several rooms and installing underfloor heating in bathrooms, the boot room and laundry room.

The main house offers more than 7,900sq ft of characterful accommodation on three floors, including three main reception rooms, a bar/lounge, snug, two studies, a kitchen/ breakfast room, shop/pantry, various utilities, principal and guest bedroom suites, five further bedrooms and three bath/shower rooms. Winkworth Farm Barn, accessed via the tunnel from the wine cellar, has been converted by the current owners to secondary accommodation comprising a vaulted, open-plan kitchen/dining/living space with a study area and two bedroom suites.

Winkworth Farm is for sale with Savills for £6.75 million. For more information and pictures, click here.

Country Life's Top 100: The magic of timelessness

Giles Kime's executive editor and interiors guru — and the man in charge of putting together our annual Country Life Top

Credit: Savills

Modern elegance in this 6,500sq ft home cut into a hillside in the Kentish Weald

Waterfield House near Cranbrook is an award-winning family home occupying one of the finest positions in the English countryside.

A Grade II*-listed hall house in North Yorkshire with Capability Brown gardens

Built for the daughter of a king, Rudby Hall in Skutterskelefe might be one of the most significant country houses

Credit: Strutt and Parker

One of Suffolk's great country house estates — 12 bedrooms, 1,763 acres and 36,000sq ft — comes up for sale at £19 million

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Located a mile down a country lane, and walking distance from the charming village of Thursley, sits Smallbrook Farm, a ‘wonderfully pretty house, with beautiful gardens and a picturesque setting’, according to agent Alaistair Mercer. 

Despite having ‘skin in the game’, he is indeed correct. Smallbrook Farm — for sale with Savills for £2.35 million — is a delightful four-bedroom Surrey home, which sits under a hipped roof, with a stone façade and magnificent gardens extending to just over an acre. It’s in a prime location too — the village of Thursley benefits from a pub, church and, crucially, a cricket club. It’s also near the Surrey Hills AONB and the area is designated a National Nature Reserve. Farnham and its Waitrose is only 8 miles away. All bases officially covered.

The main property is listed Grade II and dates back to the early 15th century, and offers a wealth of period features, a tremendous aspect and rooms in good proportions. Of particular interest is the conservatory/extension which houses the family kitchen. Created from an exposed oak frame with a pitched and glazed lantern roof, it’s a terrific spot for entertaining, with plenty of natural light and a breakfast bar in the centre for seating. Further reception rooms on the ground floor include a sitting room, snug, study and utility room.

The first floor houses the four bedrooms, including the spacious master suite, and two bathrooms. Outside, two outbuildings house two separate studios, one detached and the other above the two-bay garage. Both come with their own bathrooms.

The gardens take advantage of the glorious position of Smallbrook Barn, and have been landscaped to maximise the surrounding landscape. Providing a mix of formal, wild and woodland areas, it’s the perfect place for entertaining, alfresco dining and relaxing, while providing plenty of space for nature. A scenic brook can be found at the edge of one side, and further private gardens are found across the country lane.

Smallbrook Farm is for sale with Savills for £2.35 million. For more information and pictures, click here.

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A delightful family home in the heart of one of the Cotswolds' finest villages

Cleeve House in Ampney St Peter is spacious, listed Grade II and in a 'pivotal position' according to Pevsner.

I’ve always had a soft spot for barn conversions, principally because I grew up in one. They are often very spacious, surprisingly modern and, most importantly, take heritage buildings and re-use them, which is good for the planet. Probably.

One of their great features is the tremendous double-height ceilings and spaces you often find in them. To understand what I mean, look no further than this splendid example in the village of East Lavant, with Fine and Country for £1.5 million.

This barn, titled The Great Barn, was originally part of a larger barn, which was then ‘sensibly’ converted into separate smaller dwellings in the 1980s.

It comes with four bedrooms, each with en-suite bathrooms, two mezzanine areas and, most importantly, this absolutely massive open-plan living space on the ground floor that extends all the way up to the vaulted ceiling. 

A knock-on effect of all this space is an abundance of light, which is something we all like, especially in these cold winter months. Naturally, plenty of the original beams have been left behind, creating a home with historic character and charm that is, due to the nature of its conversion, also effortlessly modern. Tremendous.

Outside, the gardens extend to about ¾ of an acre, and have been ‘meticulously designed and landscaped’, per the agents, creating an ‘appealing yet easily maintainable exterior space’. Pathways meander through well-manicured lawns, and there are plenty of mature trees and a dew pond. There is also a double garage, for your cars and the like.

East Lavant is itself based within the South Downs National Park, so the surrounding landscape is a joy to behold, and boasts two pubs and two churches. The cathedral city of Chichester is close by to the south, providing further amenities should they be so desired, and the area as a whole is a haven for those looking to golf, ride, cycle or sail.

The Great Barn is for sale with Fine and Country for £1.5 million. For more information and pictures, click here 

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A classic Georgian country house that's perfectly secluded amid woodland, orchards and lawns

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An Art Deco country house in Essex with almost 5,000sq ft of living space

New Farm near Great Dunmow was designed by Walter 'Pink' Crittall, and it's not hard to see how he got

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A heavenly thatched home in Oxfordshire that's a perfect chocolate box cottage

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When you think of Art Deco, the mind easily wanders to the shores of Miami Beach in the US. White sand, blue sea, beautiful people on roller skates, convertible cars, things of that nature. As a result, when an Art Deco building is encountered in England, it can seem a little jarring. You recognise the building, those typical features of the style, but the setting seems slightly off. Where are the beautiful people and the roller blades? All I see before me is irritated Londoners marching to and from their workplaces.

It's even more unusual to find an Art Deco building in the countryside. Those curves, those windows seem most unusual among the greens and browns of the British countryside, occupying a liminal space in our understanding of what should be built where. However, this is no criticism of Art Deco at all, a most pleasing architectural style.

One such example would be splendid New Farm, which was designed and built in the 1930s by Walter Crittall, the son of Frances Crittall, founder of the famous metal-window manufacturers based in nearby Braintree, who joined the family business after a stint at St John’s Wood Art School in London. Widely known as Walter ‘Pink’ Crittall, he worked as an architect, furniture designer and artist and was the firm’s technical director. Listed at a guide price of £1.65m with Strutt and Parker, this Grade II-listed Art Deco country house is two miles north of Great Dunmow, seven miles from Stansted airport and railway station and 45 miles from central London via the M11.

As an architect, Crittall was a champion of the Modernist movement and, for years, ideas of what his own house might look like appeared in sketches in his notebook. Finally, in 1934, working in collaboration with Messrs Joseph Architects and with input from Sir Owen Williams, he built New Farm, which has changed little since that time, apart from some upgrading and modernisation carried out by the current owners, whose family home it has been for the past 30 years.

THE medieval village of Maulds Meaburn in Cumbria dates from the 12th century, when King Henry II gave part of the lands of Meaburn to Sir Hugh de Morville and the other part to his sister, Maud de Veteripont. When Sir Hugh fell out of favour, the King reclaimed his land and that village was known thereafter as King’s Meaburn; the village once owned by Maud is still known as Maulds Meaburn. Said to be one of only three villages left in England where the green is still grazed by sheep, Maulds Meaburn sits either side of the Lyvennet Beck, which rises on nearby Crosby Ravensworth Moor, an area rich in ancient remains. From there, the beck flows northwards through Crosby Ravensworth, Maulds Meaburn and King’s Meaburn, emerging as the River Lyvennet, which joins the River Eden near the village of Temple Sowerby, eight miles east of Penrith.

Located to the north of Cumbria’s Howgill Fells, the remote pastoral landscape of the Westmorland Dales has been the north-west outpost of the Yorkshire Dales National Park since 2016. This scenic, but relatively little-known part of east Cumbria covers an area of 200 square kilometres (77 square miles) from Maulds Meaburn in the north to Tebay in the south-west and Ravenstonedale in the south-east. Tucked away between the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, it boasts no fewer than 79 Scheduled Monuments, 19 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and two National Nature Reserves.

Here, Sam Gibson of Galbraith’s Hexham office (01434 693693) is handling the once-in-a-lifetime sale of Crake Trees Manor Farm, a traditional Westmorland holding at Maulds Meaburn, which comes to the market with a guide price of £2.8 million for the whole, or in up to 11 lots. For the past 30 years or more, the 154-acre, ring-fenced mixed farm has been developed by owners Mike and Ruth Tuer along regenerative farming lines, with no fertiliser broadcast since 2008 and the use of sprays and chemicals kept to an absolute minimum.

Starting from scratch, the couple converted a 19th-century barn into an impressive five-bedroom family farmhouse, incorporating a mix of original features, locally sourced materials and elegant modern fittings. Crake Trees Manor stands in an idyllic location at the end of a long sweeping drive, surrounded by rolling fields and open countryside with glorious panoramic views over the Pennine Ridge.

Over the years, it has been the nerve centre of a successful B&B, camping and wedding business, which currently generates an income of some £200,000 annually. Assets involved include the farmhouse, some excellent outbuildings, a detached bungalow, party barn, four glamping pods and a camping field with planning consent for 40 tents. Additional income of some £15,000 a year is derived from a Countryside Stewardship Higher Level Tier scheme, which runs until December 31, 2031.

Located in the grounds are the atmospheric ruins of Crake Trees Tower House, a Grade II-listed Scheduled Monument. Built in the 14th century and enlarged in the 16th or 17th centuries, it is said to have been a residence of the powerful Lancaster family. Windows of various dates, a stone newel stair and a number of fireplaces remain; the barrel vault to the tower’s ground floor also survives intact.

Mr and Mrs Tuer will also leave a remarkable environmental legacy in the Crake Trees wetland and river restoration project. Following a partnership forged in 2020 with the Eden Rivers Trust, it has seen the creation of nine wetland areas and 11 ponds, the planting of about 500 trees, the restoration of 600m (about a third of a mile) of the Micklebank Syke and Howe Beck (two important headwater tributaries of the Lyvennet), and the reconnection of the channel with the floodplain in key areas.

By devoting a large area to wetlands and ponds, Crake Trees Manor Farm will be able to store 20 million litres of water at times of high rainfall. In addition, the river restoration and the reconnection of the floodplain, combined with the tree planting, will slow the flow of water that isn’t being stored in the ponds, further reducing the downstream flood risk. ‘Projects such as these are at the core of what Eden Rivers Trust does, but they would not be possible without people like Mike and Ruth, who are willing to give areas of land to make space for water and wildlife for the benefit of everyone,’ explains an Eden Rivers spokesperson.

Crake Trees Manor Farm is for sale with Galbraith for £2.8 million. For more information and pictures, click here

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A Victorian clocktower with its own moat, and just a stone's throw from one of Norfolk's most beautiful beaches

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The River Deben cuts through a gloriously green valley south of Framlingham, twisting and turning past ancient abbeys and watermills before its final silty stretch from Woodbridge to Bawdsey.

Here, Ipswich-based Jackson-Stops and Landbridge are joint agents in the sale — at a guide price of £3.5m for the whole — of the wonderfully secluded and unspoilt Lodge Farm estate, which borders the magical Deben estuary, four miles from the Suffolk coast at Bawdsey and eight miles from Woodbridge.

For sale on the open market for the first time in its history following the owners’ decision to move to Cornwall, Lodge Farm was acquired by the Simper family as sitting tenants on the much larger Ramsholt estate, when the latter was sold in the 1940s.

Set within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths National Landscape (the new name for an AONB), the property includes 10 acres of beach and woodland along the ‘Rocks’ foreshore. Even with pictures taken in the colder half of the year it's clear to see that the beach is beautiful and unspoilt; how many happy childhood memories would could you make in a spot like this?

The house at the heart of Lodge Farm is an unlisted four-bedroom farmhouse — which the agents state as 'is in need of refurbishment'. Frankly, if this place is, then most of the places which earn that tag are in need of demolition: this is a delightful home that is full of character, not least with the wonderful, stone-floored hallway, which lead on one side to the kitchen and on the other to the living room, utility room, study and a downstairs bedroom.

The kitchen/dining room is a combined 25ft long, with flag stone flooring and french doors opening out onto the gardens.

Upstairs there are three further bedrooms, including a delightful master with en-suite and french windows opening on to a balcony.

Also part of the deal are 4,250sq ft of stores and workshops, including stables and a converted barn that presently serves as both annexe and office, with two main rooms, a cloakroom and a kitchenette.

There are some 141 acres in all, including five acres of grass paddocks and 122 acres of arable land.

Lodge Farm Estate is for sale at £3.5 million via Jackson-Stops and Landbridge — see more details and pictures.

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Low Barns is a pretty stone barn which has been converted into a charming four bed cottage with blossom-filled gardens and paddocks surrounding the plot.

It is among a handful of nearby converted farm buildings and barns, and is listed with Finest Properties for £650,000.

It is nestled in one of Northumberland’s most idyllic spots, the little hamlet of Thornbrough, which lies just beyond popular village of Corbridge on the River Tyne.

This pretty four-bedroom house has all the cosy winter comforts one needs, with an AGA to lean on in the kitchen and striking inglenook woodburner in the dual-aspect sitting room overlooking the rolling Tyne Valley.

The dual-aspect master bedroom enjoys the same views and includes a dressing room and bathroom.

It is decorated in creams throughout, so buyers may wish to inject some more colour to the place, but the neutral and calming rooms are ready to move into.

From the house is a courtyard and formal gardens complete with elegant box hedging. Growers will be kept busy with a generous vegetable patch with a greenhouse, plus there are several seating areas to admire your efforts and the stunning views of the Tyne Valley.

Almost two acres of land include a large open paddock with surrounding hedging, which is on a gentle slope to the south of the cottage.

The A69 is easily reached from Thornbrough, providing convenient access to Newcastle and Carlisle. There's also a railway station ion the edge of Corbridge.

Families have several schools to choose from including first and middle schools in Corbridge and senior schools in Hexham.

Low Barns in Thornbrough, Northumberland, is listed with Finest Properties at a guide price of £650,000.

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Home workers fed up of being sat at their laptop in an uninspiring study or spare room would find their environment vastly improved if they moved to this charming barn conversion. Within its beautiful mature grounds is a pretty timber outbuilding, which lends itself perfectly to being used as a garden office.

The five-bedroom, timber-clad home is listed with Hamptons for offers in the region of £1.595 million.

Nestled in a plot of more than two acres and lined with trees, Stallhouse Barn is accessed via a no-through lane in the hamlet of North Heath, between Pulborough and Billingshurst. Those needing to commute to the capital can travel from both towns to London Victoria in just over an hour.

The house is immaculately turned out with some 'character' features. Once your focus moves from the enormous cowhide rug and ritzy bedframe, you'll notice the master suite has lots to offer. With a Juliet balcony, dressing room and en-suite shower room, it's a very comfortable, light-filled space, with lovely timber beams.

Both the kitchen and drawing room are also flooded with light thanks to being dual-aspect with vaulted ceilings and French doors leading out to the 2¼-acre grounds.

Outside is a sub-bathed terrace and seating area, which looks out over lawns. The former paddock within the grounds is no longer fenced, but if put back in place the 2.2 acres could squeeze in a pony or two, or perhaps more sensibly a flock of hens with lots of space for them to explore.

Those less inclined to keep livestock may prefer to keep the grounds to themselves and enjoy relaxing strolls before taking a dip in the hot tub situated by the house.

The outbuilding could provide the home office of dreams, but an even better option might be keeping its bar and enjoying the space for entertaining and parties, as the current owners have.

Stallhouse Barn in North Heath, West Sussex is listed with Hamptons for offers in the region of £1.595 million

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Long Barn is a neatly turned out Grade II-listed conversion with plenty of outdoor space and enviable views.

It is listed with Winkworth for offers in the region of £825,000.

Accommodation is arranged over three storeys, including five bedrooms and well-preserved period features, such as inglenook fireplaces and exposed beams.

The property is a short walk from the small market town of Loddon in Norfolk.

The main reception room has tall ceilings and a dual-aspect outlook, providing a light-filled space, and the kitchen has oak worktops and a breakfast bar, creating a versatile kitchen diner. Four of the bedrooms are found on the first floor, with the fifth on the second.

'The present seller really has spared no expense when modernising this period home, ensuring that the age of the property was taken into consideration when making any internal improvements,' the agent says.

There are extensive gardens to the front and a walled garden at the back of the house, with wonderful views across the surrounding countryside, plus plenty of parking with a double garage.

The walled garden has been professionally landscaped and features a slate terrace the agents describe as 'perfect for outdoor entertaining and the ideal suntrap'.

It was originally part of the Hales Hall estate and the small market town of Loddon, on the River Chet, is only about 10 minutes away.

Loddon centres around its handsome 15th century church, Holy Trinity Church, and sits within the bounds of The Broads National Park, Britain’s largest protected wetland. It's name is thought to mean 'muddy river' in Celtic, owing to its proximity to the River Chet.

Loddon is 12 miles south-east of Norwich and is also within easy reach of Beccles town centre. There are several local reputable schools.

Long Barn near Loddon, Nofolk, is listed with Winkworth - Poringland for offers in the region of £825,000

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Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

An enchanting Cornish house with stunning harbour views

This secluded property overlooks the historic church and harbour at the mouth of Mylor Creek, near Falmouth.

Credit: Hamptons

The Grade II*-listed former home of the BBC's founder, Lord Reith, is for sale in the heart of Westminster

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Cornwall — £175,000

Over 2,000 sq ft of space, plus large garden, in a Cornish village near Liskeard, with the sandy beaches of the coast less than 10 miles away? This is quite a bargain.

The catch is that this 1905 church has yet to be converted — and its Grade II listing will mean that getting the right permission will take a bit of tenacity. Still, the possibilities here are huge.

For sale with Savills. See more pictures and details for this property.

Isle of Wight — £195,000

In the village of St Helens on the Isle of Wight, this four-bedroom houseboat has a stunning mooring within Bembridge Harbour, from where there are walks to Priory Bay and some of the beaches on the island.

It's well-appointed inside, with a huge open plan living space and a roof terrace.

For sale with Spence Willard. See more pictures and details for this property.

County Durham — £200,000

The 'epitome of rustic charm and contemporary living' say the agents of this converted drovers' barn in Weardale, within the North Pennines AONB.

This wonderful old stone-built home is right beside a bridge and overlooking a river; while inside, it's a three-storey dwelling that seems to squeeze a llot into a modest footprint.

For sale with Venture Properties. See more pictures and details for this property.

Yorkshire — £185,000

We're not sure if a house that's a shell of stones counts as unspoilt, but this Yorkshire Dales location certainly does.

Hesleden Farm, as you can see, needs to be created from scratch since absolutely nothing has been done apart from gaining permission to convert this in a two-bedroom dwelling. The challenge has been issued!

For sale with Wilman & Lodge. See more pictures and details for this property.

Cornwall — £200,000

St Mawes, on the Roseland Peninsula, is one of the West Country's most sought-after spots, so to find any property at this price range is quite something.

This one-bedroom, single-storey property is listed as a 'barn conversion' that is 'subject to necessary planning permissions' — though as you can see, a fair amount has clearly been done already to make the building habitable.

For sale with H TIddy. See more pictures and details for this property.

Suffolk — £200,000

Franlingham is an absolute gem of a place — how can you not like a town with its own castle? — so it's exciting to see this quaint home in a central location.

It needs some updating, is tiny at just over 500 sq ft, but it's a place all of your own with garden and garage.

For sale with Hamilton Smith. See more pictures and details for this property.

From the outside at least, Durslade looks like your quintessential West Country farmhouse — all wizened grey stone, crumbling at the corners like a block of particularly good cheddar cheese, arched and leaded windows and even the matching farmyard buildings surrounding it. Some that date all the way back to the mid-18th century.

The inside, however, is an entirely different story. Renovated by Argentinian architect Luis Laplace (other public commissions include museums spaces in South America), the interiors are entirely devoid of stylistic references; it is impossible to ascribe them to a single era or style. It makes for an interesting effect: this is a house that doesn’t impose moral boundaries and visitors are free to, for the duration of their stay, be whoever they want to be and do whatever they want to do. 

The house is part of Artfarm — a hospitality and development company owned by Manuela and Iwan Wirth of Hauser & Wirth fame — a multi-disciplinary site that also includes an events space and farm shop, and the Hauser & Wirth Somerset gallery. The shop is primarily supplied by the five working farms (arable and livestock) — also owned by ArtFarm — which sprawl across a 1,000 acre-size piece of countryside. It’s farmed according to a regenerative model and managed as an end-to-end business (the abattoir is only 20-minutes away). 

The most interesting addition is a small vineyard on a sloping piece of land. The vines are susceptible to frost so during chillier times the vignerons cut small holes in the hedgerow at the bottom of the valley to allow any cold air tumbling downwards to pass through. On the other side there are the remains of a Roman settlement and…vineyard. An unearthed Roman coin informed the design of the present day bottle logo. 

The rooms 

The six en-suite bedrooms sleep 12 in total. They’re all in a state of romantic disrepair: one of the walls in mine, on the first floor, was covered in indecipherable writing and doodles. They were drawn by one of the previous occupants and left exposed in a sort of homage to them and their part in the Farmhouse’s story. Trying to figure out what they might mean beats counting sheep to get to sleep any day of the week. 

Some of the other rooms have scrubbed floors; others have perfectly preserved 1970s bedrooms; two have vintage floral wallpaper. One, somewhat bizarrely, has a bread oven in it. Logic dictates that the room must’ve once been a kitchen — but you’re never quite sure at Durslade. The one thing binding them together are the beds. They’re not similar in design (are you surprised?) — one is wooden and carved, another is American brass — but are all wonderfully comfortable and very easy to fall into after a day’s gallivanting round the Somerset countryside or partying downstairs. 

Eating and drinking 

Durslade is, quite literally, a few steps away from the Roth Bar & Grill — a 30-yard former milking parlour. The menu focuses on seasonal fare — plenty of it sourced from the farm and the immediate surrounding area — and cooked over fire. It’s completely unpretentious and delicious. 

In nearby Bruton, there’s At The Chapel and Michelin-starred Osip. 

Alternatively, stock up on farm-fresh produce at the on-site farm shop and whip up your own feast in the Farmhouse kitchen. 

How they’ll keep you busy 

Hauser & Wirth is famous for its art the world over — and the Somerset gallery is no exception. In fact, the 360 degree-style experience became Hauser & Wirth's go-to model for their Menorca and LA iterations. Your first port of call should be the gallery where there’s always plenty to see. The curators decided not to erect plaques next to the works, so you’re free (or forced) to interpret each one as you see fit. 

Next up, there’s the garden — or Oudolf Field, to give it its proper name — designed by Dutch landscaper Piet Oudolf, the brains behind New York’s High Line and the 2011 Serpentine Pavilion garden. Some 26,000 plants, grown by Orchard Dene nursery in Oxfordshire, were required to fill the curvy beds, resulting in a 1½-acre patchwork quilt of colour and texture. It was described by Country Life contributor Non Morris as a ‘wonderful combination of wilderness and calm’ (August 15, 2018). 

What else to do while you’re there 

Spend a morning in Bruton or Frome, or make for Stourhead, a Palladian mansion that boasts a Regency library, enviable collection of Chippendale furniture and fairytale-esque garden dotted with neoclassical temples, grottoes and rare trees. 

Who is it for? 

Anyone and everyone is welcome, but the Farmhouse itself is better suited to adult guests. Ideally ones who know how to throw a really good party. If walls could talk… An interest in art wouldn't go amiss either.

What gives it the ‘wow’ factor 

It has to be the design. In a world where the phrase ‘each room has been individually designed’ applied to a hotel or house normally means ‘one of the throw cushions is a different shape’ Durslade is in a league of its own. 

The one thing we’d change 

Some of the ensuite bathrooms come with baths and hand-held shower heads — which might not be to everyone’s taste.

Exclusive use of Durslade Farmhouse from £500 a night — visit www.dursladefarmhouse.co.uk for more information and to book. 

You'd be forgiven at first glance for thinking that the equine residents are better catered for than the humans at Wheelwrights House in West Sussex, with their glorious stable block complete with wash bay, feed and tack room, foaling box and clock tower.

Thankfully, the house is rather lovely too. This pretty period property is set in almost 50 acres of rolling pastures in Petworth and is on the market for £2,950,000 with Knight Frank.

This wisteria clad Grade II-listed farmhouse has four bedrooms, three reception rooms and huge amounts of character, with beamed ceilings and period windows.

It comes complete with an additional property, Wheelwrights Barn, which dates back to the 1480s, as well as the aforementioned stables and other equestrian facilities.

The two-bedroom 'party barn' is as immaculate as the smart farmhouse, and also has its own bar, perfect for celebrating birthdays, weddings or any equestrian successes.

The new owner will be able to school their steeds in the rubber floodlit arena; and once turned out, the horses can enjoy acres of well-managed grazing with post and rail fencing.

The stunning views of surrounding countryside are sure to have universal appeal — but we're pretty sure this property will be snapped up by a horse lover.

Wheelwrights House in Petworth, West Sussex, is listed for £2,950,000 with Knight Frank.

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Fancy following in the footsteps of royalty? Well cast your eye over idyllic Radnage Bottom Farm in Buckinghamshire, which is on the market via Knight Frank and Blue Book Agency for £2.35 million.

The village of Radnage has a rich history. The manor of Radnage is thought to have come into the possession of the Crown after the Norman Conquest. Local lore even suggests that Radnage Bottom Farm was the site of kennels and a hunting lodge used by King John before he granted it to the Knights Templar in 1215.

And there's more royal history in later centuries: King Charles II reportedly gifted the manor to one of his mistresses, by which time this house had already been standing for several decades.

The main part of the traditional brick and flint farmhouse dates back to around 1600. This Grade II-listed house has been brought to the market for the first time in 36 years, so understandably is in need of TLC here — but its period charm shines through.

With its exposed beams, handsome fireplaces and original doors, Radnage Bottom Farm is brimming with character features. The large inglenook fireplace in the sitting room even has toasty seats either side and an old bread oven.

The principal rooms — reception hall, dining room and sitting room — are all south-facing, with far-reaching views of the rolling countryside.

The kitchen is arguably the beating heart of the country house. It leads on to a discreet study, utility room and workshop, pantry, conservatory, and boot room. 

There are two staircases to the first floor, where there are four bedrooms, three with ensuites. And there’s a fifth bedroom and separate bathroom on the second floor.

If the farmhouse doesn’t provide enough space, there’s always the two Grade II-listed barns. Although ‘barns’ doesn’t quite do them justice. 

One barn, used for entertaining, has dark beams and old windows that give it a distinctly Tudor banquet vibe. The other barn has exposed beams and a mezzanine hay loft and is used for storage. 

Other outbuildings include former kennels, which could potentially (subject to planning) be converted into further bedrooms.

The house is surrounded by a pretty garden and grounds, which include an old well, an orchard and a recently resurfaced tennis court. It's situated in the picturesque Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Radnage Bottom Farm is currently on the market via Knight Frank and Blue Book Agency for £2,350,000 — see more pictures or enquire with the agents for further details.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

Longsleddale , Cumbria — £1,400,000

Those who've dreamed of moving to the Lake District will gaze in awe at this this 17th century, Grade II-listed home, with its uninterrupted views of the fells of the Upper Longsleddale valley.

Charming features include a stone staircase, original oak panelling and inglenook fireplace.

A former mill which dates back to 1263 also sits within the grounds, though its working days are long over since it's been converted into a cottage.

For sale with Thomson Hayton Winkley Estate Agents. See more pictures of this property.

Gwynedd — £695,000

Yr Helfa is a dream home for sale: a traditional Welsh longhouse believed to have been constructed in the 1700s, and in one of the most peaceful and secluded spots imaginable.

The interior features Welsh slate slab flooring, exposed stone work and traditional fireplaces. The current owners have undertaken a complete and extensive re build of the property during their ownership, blending traditional materials and building methods with state of the art infrastructure and services.

For sale with Knight Frank. See more pictures and details for this property.

Edenbridge, Kent — £6,500,000

It's not easy finding a middle-of-nowhere house in the south-east of England — but neither is it impossible, as this wonderful home in the heart of Kent shows.

The house stands in the centre of a 228-acre estate, which includes superb equestrian facilities as well as swimming pool and tennis court.

Inside the main five-bedroom home is full of character — the ornate wooden staircase and wood panelling being cases in point — and if you don't want to handle quite so much land, the vendors are happy to split the property into lots.

For sale with Savills. See more pictures of this property.

Ballindalloch, Banffshire — £1,200,000

If you're looking to escape it all, this imposing 11-bedroom former shooting lodge takes you well off the beaten track. Set in the centre of the 40,000 acre Glenlivet Estate, its field sports connections haven't been lost, with antlers and stags adorning many a wall and surface.

Though the hunting themes may not appeal to all, the glorious views across the Cairngorms National Park probably will. Plus there's heaps of entertainment space, including a billiards room complete with a bar, essential for warming yourself during those cold Scottish winters.

If you need a little space post-party, guests can be sent to bed at the neighbouring property, The Coach House, or even the 'cosy bunkhouse', known as The Stag Shed, all within the eight-acre esate.

For sale with Savills. See more pictures of this property.

Grangemill, Derbyshire — £1,750,000

More than 100 acres of the surrounding farmland are offered with this charming Georgian farmhouse, nestled within the Peak District National Park, with panoramic views of rolling countryside.

Despite its remote location, you needn't be lonely, as the property comes with a stone built barn, which has been converted into a pretty two-bed cottage.

Budding growers will be in their element, with a large vegetable garden close to the house, complete with raised brick beds and two greenhouses.

For sale with Fine & Country. See more pictures of this property.

Hexworthy, Dartmoor — £1,295,000

Completely idyllic, this former fishing lodge is in the remote and beautiful Swincombe valley in Exmoor. It's a haven for nature and sits near the confluence of the Swincombe and West Dart rivers.

You may be far from the nearest town, but you won't be short of company in the form of walkers, riders and cyclists, as the area benefits from an abundance of paths and bridleways, straight from the garden gate.

The handsome five-bed house is set in seven acres, with paddocks perfectly suited to equine companions, who will benefit from the field shelter, offering year-round protection from the elements.

For sale with Knight Frank. See more pictures of this property.

Harrogate, Yorkshire — £1,850,000

This 17th century Grade II-listed country house is situated in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales.

Streams and waterfalls run through the 40 acre estate, with established gardens and woodland, plus endless adventures to be had in the surrounding countryside.

If you ever grow tired of the great outdoors, fear not, as the property also has its own 'leisure wing' complete with gym, swimming pool and sauna — bliss.

For sale with North. See more pictures of this property.

Glenalmond, Perth — £1,195,000

In the heart of Scotland, this impressive 10-bed riverside house on the edge of the Highlands will satisfy those looking to escape it all.

The River Almond runs along one side of the house, with pretty daffodil and bluebell covered woodland on the other.

There's a large pond and elegant garden within the 18-acre estate, which can be yours for the price of a boxed-in home with a tiny garden in the capital.

For sale with Knight Frank. See more pictures of this property.

Millom, Cumbria — £700,000

Set within the Lake District National Park, Woodside House benefits from peaceful, picturesque surroundings, with the Western Lakes on one side and a coastline dotted with secluded beaches on the other.

The property itself is in need of complete renovation works, as is clear to see from the photos, but with an additional large barn and various outbuildings, there is plenty of scope for development potential to transform this into a really lovely country home.

Externally, a long private drive leads up to the property, opening to large expanses of lawn, flanked by mature trees. To the rear are a series of derelict barns and outbuildings, creating a courtyard setting, with further land available via separate negotiation.

For sale with Finest Properties. See more pictures of this property.

Newton Abbot, Devon — £2,900,000

This truly breathtaking nine-bed property sits in the middle of the Dartmoor National Park.

The original part of the house was once a Devon longhouse, originating from the 16th century, but it has been substantially renovated in recent years into the immaculately presented property that it is today.

With just under three acres, numerous outbuildings plus a fantastic indoor swimming pool, Sweeton Manor is sure to delight.

For sale with Knight Frank. See more pictures of this property or request further details from the agent.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

Credit: H Tiddy

12 stunning character properties for sale at under £400,000

Thatched homes in Cornwall and West Sussex are among the many highlights of these gorgeous character cottages for sale.

Look closely and you’ll notice that this charming converted barn in Devon has some intriguing twists.

Built into the hillside, Old Aish Barn is a bank barn, designed so that its lower and upper ground floors can be accessed from their relative ground levels.

It also has a single-storey roundhouse on one side — and an external stone staircase with a little terrace on the other. 

The five-bedroom property near Petrockstow is on the market via Knight Frank for £1,350,000.

Old Aish Barn oozes rustic charm. The bank barn and the roundhouse have thatched roofs and distinctive ‘eyebrow’ dormer windows. Both are built of local stone, with the walls of the barn rendered for a smooth finish. 

The property has been carefully converted to preserve its heritage. Highlights inside include timber floors, exposed roof timbers and beams, as well as inglenook fireplaces fitted with wood burning stoves.

It’s not short on modern comforts either, such as contemporary units and built-in electrical appliances in the kitchen.

The house also boasts some pretty bold interiors. Walls coloured lime green and bright blue may not be to everyone’s taste but they can be easily transformed with a lick of paint.

As you may have gathered, Old Aish Barn is far from conventional. So you probably won’t be surprised to learn that this extends to the room layout too.

There’s two double bedrooms that share a shower room on the lower ground floor. And there’s a further three double bedrooms, including one with an ensuite, and a family bathroom, on the first floor.

And the roundhouse? Well that’s where you’ll find the sitting room.

Outside, the house is ‘fringed’ by a wrap-around terrace that is something of a sun trap throughout the day, according to the selling agent. 

Nestled in 15 acres of land, Old Aish Barn comes with a triple (yes, triple) garage and various farm buildings, including one with consent already granted to transform it into a two-bedroom annexe. Indeed, Knight Frank says conversion has already begun. 

There’s also a sweeping lawn featuring a pond, established trees and raised beds as well as pastureland.

It is located in the rural hamlet of Aish Barton but you’re less than a mile from the village of Petrockstow, where there’s a farm shop, village hall and parish church.

The larger village of Hatherleigh, the town of Okehampton, and Exeter are slightly further afield.

Old Aish Barn is currently on the market via Knight Frank for £1,350,000 — see more pictures or enquire with the agent for further details. 

Credit: Knight Frank

The best country houses for sale this week

Catch up on the best houses that have come up for sale via Country Life in the last few weeks.

Situated in the Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Park Farm in Wiltshire is a Grade II-listed farmhouse is about as quintessentially English as they come. It's on the market via Savills for £3,250,000.

The main house is set in nearly 25 acres of gardens and grounds, an idyllic period family home that — as the pictures here show — offers exactly the sort of bucolic living you'd hope for.

There's more to the place than just the house and land, however: a thriving holiday cottage business has been set up by the present owners, meaning that this is a property that could — at least in part — pay for itself.

The owners have extensively renovated the main stone farmhouse over the last decade with, in our humble opinion, impeccable taste.

They've also carried out the less exciting but essential bits — re-wiring, re-plumbing, re-roofing and re-configuring — as well as the aesthetics, which blend modern interior touches without compromising the property's period charm. 

At the front of the five-bedroom house, the well-proportioned drawing room and dining room boast working fireplaces and sash windows with views of formal gardens. 

The kitchen has an electric AGA and handmade cabinets with marble worktops. There’s also a cosy sitting room with wood burning stove, a utility room, a boot room with adjoining shower room, plus a backdoor that opens onto an enclosed courtyard garden. 

On the first floor, there are three bedrooms, a shower room, and a study. And on the second floor, there’s the principal bathroom, two further bedrooms that share a ‘Jack and Jill’ shower room, and a sitting room or study.

As for the holiday cottage business, that's down to the vendors having converted a number of former farm buildings. There’s a pair of cottages, known as Cow Drove and Barn Owl, that sit within their own courtyard — no need for holidaymakers and owners to tiptoe around each other.

There’s also The Old Stables, a secondary property transformed into a two-bedroom, open-plan home. 

There’s also still scope for further improvement and expansion for those hoping to put their own stamp on Park Farm. Planning permission was previously in place to convert part of a large steel-framed open barn into another holiday cottage. It may have potential for ‘a range of uses subject to the necessary planning consents’, according to the agent. 

Other outbuildings include former piggeries now used for garden storage and a former cider store.

Park Farm really does seem to have it all. In addition to the formal gardens at the front of the main farmhouse, there’s also a kitchen garden with raised beds and fruit cages, and a small orchard. 

There are two parcels of pasture to the south east and south west of the property. And an arboretum of native trees has been planted in recent years and an older deciduous woodland, a haven for wildlife, sits to the north of the property. 

Park Farm is just two miles from the village of Hindon. For a wider range of amenities, Tisbury and Shaftesbury are around five miles away. The area is renowned for country sports, including horse racing at Salisbury and Wincanton.

Park Farm is currently on the market via Savills for £3,250,000 — see more pictures or enquire with the agent for further details. 

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

Revealed: How much extra you'll pay to live in a National Park or AONB

What price beauty? Annunciata Elwes delves into Knight Frank research to find out.

Making the move out to the country means different things to different people. Some are looking for a little more space, but keeping easy access to the nearest City; some are looking to throw themselves into village life, in a cottage at the heart of a thriving community. And some are looking for a touch of self-sufficiency. Those in the latter bracket will be excited to see a farmstead for sale in the heart of the undulating Exmoor National Park, which — in the words of the agents — offers a ‘unique opportunity to immerse in serene countryside living.’

Higher Eastcott Farm, near Withiel Florey, Somerset, spans 44 acres and has potential as a family home, equestrian centre and more. It is on the market via Knight Frank for £2,400,000.

The ‘much-loved’ five-bedroom farmhouse has a homely, country feel to it, with open fireplaces and cosy rooms. 

There’s more space than might first appear from the outside. On the ground floor, there’s a drawing room, sitting room, dining room, study, modern kitchen, breakfast room, utility room, and a boot room.

There's also a conservatory with views out across the garden and, more unusually for a ground floor, a guest bedroom.

Upstairs, there are four bedrooms, two with ensuites, and a family bathroom.

The farm comes with a number of substantial outbuildings and barns. They include a one-bedroom cottage, carport, stables, log cabin, barn, and a Dutch barn, where there’s an indoor riding school.

While they have a strong equestrian leaning, the outbuildings offer huge potential for a variety of uses, according to the agent — especially when you start thinking about the number of small businesses which seem to be popping up across the country since lockdown. You'd need to get the relevant permissions, but the new incumbent can certainly think big. A riding school? Local business centre? B&B?

‘This captivating property presents a unique opportunity to immerse in the serene countryside living, while still holding the potential to serve a variety of uses, from a cherished family abode to a bustling equestrian hub,’ the agents. 

No write-up of Higher Eastcott Farm would be complete without highlighting its remote location in the middle of Exmoor National Park. Secluded and private, it is.

‘Few homes of this type come to the market within the Exmoor National Park. Especially when surrounded by 360-degree views of rural undulating countryside and big skies,’ says the agent. 

‘Plus, this property is surrounded and protected by its own land which gives one the sense of remoteness and privacy.’ 

Higher Eastcott Farm is currently on the market via Knight Frank for £2,400,000 — see more pictures or enquire with the agent for further details. 

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

This charming farmhouse on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, Devon, has got ‘project’ written all over it.

The four-bedroom property just outside the village of Cornwood comes with four acres of rolling countryside and a range of traditional stone outbuildings with bags of potential. It’s been brought to the market via Marchand Petit for £1,000,000.

The property, which dates from at least 1831, is full of character, with exposed beams, flagstone floors, and Dartmoor-stone-built walls throughout. 

Downstairs, the sitting and dining room has two grand hearths, now home to log burners. Meanwhile the modern dual-aspect kitchen comes with a Lacanche cooker and gas hobs above. There’s also a utility room and a boot room, ideal for storing away all those muddy boots.

Upstairs, there are four pleasant bedrooms, one with an ensuite, and a bathroom.

The traditional stone outbuildings are where things start to get really interesting. Some of them have planning permission for conversion already in place, allowing you to breathe new life into this bucolic setting. 

One space that would not need any conversion is the garden. Described as the ‘jewel in the crown’ by the agent, it offers a mix of lawn and terrace, shade and sun. 

If you’ve got the knack, you can live off the land here (partially, at least). The vegetable garden has a variety of crops and a stone potting shed. And the orchard has a mix of apple varieties, including James Grieve and Egremont Russet. There are also two paddocks.

There’s an outdoor dining area to the southern side of the house, a great spot to unwind after a hard day’s graft revamping the buildings.

And thanks to the farmhouse’s elevated position on the southern slopes of Dartmoor National Park, you can also take in far-reaching views of the Devon countryside.

You've got moorland on your doorstep, where there’s no shortage of walking, biking and riding opportunities. Yet this property is also close to the A38 — the 'Devon Expressway — which offers quick links to Exeter, Plymouth and beyond.

On the market via Marchand Petit for £1,000,000 — see more pictures or enquire with the agent for further details. 

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for

Every so often a house pops up for sale which looks like it belongs in the interiors section of Country Life rather than the property pages. That's certainly the case with Molly's Barn, which blends a rustic aesthetic with modern comforts.

This beautiful brick-built barn, sandwiched between Moreton-in-Marsh and Shipston-on-Stour, was restored by a renowned local builder in 2019, and now it's on the market via Savills for £875,000.

It boasts three bedrooms, three bathrooms and plenty of entertaining space over two floors.

The largely open-plan ground floor includes a dual-aspect sitting room with built-in bookcases and a dining room that opens into a well-appointed kitchen and pantry. There’s also a cloakroom, perfect for squirrelling away clutter.

The first floor comprises the main bedroom, two further bedrooms and a family bathroom.

Molly’s Barn blends a wealth of beautiful period features, such as exposed beams and timber ceilings, with contemporary flourishes. It’s a light and airy home, thanks to a neutral colour palette and large windows that allow natural light to flood in. 

It also offers an easy ‘commute’, with a large pergola outside leading to a separate home office/gym. 

The gardens are mostly set to lawn and are surrounded by mature hedges for privacy.

Molly’s Barn is located in Little Wolford on the northern fringe of the Cotswolds AONB. The area is known for its picturesque countryside and has a wide choice of walks and rides.

It’s also close to Soho Farmhouse and Daylesford Organic Farm Shop, which have a reputation for attracting local celebrities.

The nearby towns of Shipston-on-Stour, Moreton-in-Marsh, Chipping Norton and Stow-on-the-Wold have a range of facilities, while Stratford-Upon-Avon, Oxford and Cheltenham have more cultural, entertainment and shopping opportunities, plus some top schools.

Molly’s Barn is currently on the market via Savills for £875,000 — see more pictures or enquire with the agent for further details. 

Credit: Strutt and Parker

Best country houses for sale this week

An irresistible West Country cottage and a magnificent Cumbrian country house make our pick of the finest country houses for