A country house built on the site of an ancient castle in Sussex, where the 900-year walls are still standing
This 17th century home built around the site of a 12th century castle is on the market for the first time in over a century. Penny Churchill takes a closer look.
The High Weald National Landscape is deceptively huge. Stretching from Horsham in the west to Winchelsea in the east, and from the outskirts of Tonbridge to the coast at Hastings, it's almost fifty miles across and 30 miles from north to south, covering 560 square miles of rolling hills and ancient forests, all dotted with charming villages. This, as Octavia Pollock wrote in Country Life in 2020, is 'the archetypal image many of us have of rural England'.
Not far from the dead centre of this stretch of England, between Heathfield and Battle, you'll find one of those aforementioned villages: Dallington. And on the edge of this village, stretching across 337 acres of East Sussex, you'll find the historic Oldcastle Estate, which is now on the market at £7,035,000.
A dream of England: the High Weald National Landscape around the Oldcastle Estate in Dallington.
Oldcastle, which has been in the Buckley family for over a century, consists of a hugely impressive principal house, three cottages, one farmhouse and one farmyard, and hundreds of acres of productive farmland. Will Matthews of Knight is handling the sale, either as a whole at the full guide price, or in up to nine lots.
The estate’s focal point is Grade II-listed Oldcastle, the original part of which is a two-storey, timber-frame, late-17th-century building. It was bought in 1910 by Mr Justice Henry Button Buckley, a distinguished barrister and judge, who had the place — then still called Old Castle — restored and enlarged between 1910 and 1912 by Ernest Newton.
It didn't take long for the Justice Buckley to have a fine title to go with his new home: he was created Baron Wrenbury of Old Castle in 1915.
This original part of the house, which boasts some fine 17th-century panelling, forms the central section of the present building, with Newton’s 1910 wings added at either end.
For most of the 20th century Oldcastle remained the country home of the Buckley family, though it housed children refugees during the war, served for a time as a girls’ finishing school, and was even a guest house for a spell, according to the agents, before the 3rd Baron Wrenbury made it the Buckley family home once again in 1961.
The original house, available as Lot 1a at £1.95 million, provides 8,235sq ft of traditional accommodation, set amid 13 acres of delightful gardens and grounds that include easily-seen remnants of those original, 900-year-old castle walls.
The space is set across three floors, and is an object lesson in keeping a period home updated while retaining its character.
There is a fine entrance hall, kitchen, grand dining room, beautiful drawing room, billiard room and more on the ground floor, which has a wine cellar and gun room below.
One side of the house is arranged as a self-contained, three-bedroom annexe, ideal as either staff accommodation or multi-generational living.
The principal bedrooms are all on the first floor, and all with fascinating names which speak of more history to uncover — Chapel Bedroom, Aunt Joyce's Bedroom and so on.
There are also upstairs spaces currently designated as a nursery and a longroom, but depending on the new buyer's needs things could be reconfigured to make this a ten-bedroom home.
The three cottages on the estate — being sold together as Lot 1b — are The Gardener's Cottage and The Engine House, both with two bedrooms, and the three-bed Stables Cottage. The latter is more than just a pretty name: there is indeed a stable included, with three separate bays.
The remaining lots take in the hundreds of acres of farmland — mostly laid to pasture — and woodland, with one of the parcels including a four-bedroom farmhouse.
The Oldcastle Estate is for sale through Knight Frank — see more details.
