Time slows to walking pace in the pretty stone villages that line the wide, shallow valley of the River Welland.
This waterway flows gently from its source near Sibbertoft, eight miles from Market Harborough, through the borderlands of Northamptonshire and Leicestershire to Stamford in Lincolnshire, before passing eastwards through the fens to the Wash.
And amid this charmed landscape, Stephen King of Market Harborough-based King West has hit the ground running with the launch onto the market of imposing Horninghold Hall at Horninghold, in the upper Welland Valley, seven miles north-east of Market Harborough, Leicestershire, and four miles south-west of Uppingham, Rutland.
Mr King seeks ‘offers in excess of £3.95 million’ for the Hall, previously known as Horninghold House, which, according to Pevsner, was converted in the 1880s from a 17th-century farmhouse by Thomas Hardcastle of nearby Blaston Hall; he added the bay-windowed Victorian stone front and the extensive red-brick stables, dated 1882. Alexander Cross, who rented the house before buying the Horninghold estate in 1916, reputedly kept as many as 30 hunters there.
Following Thomas’s death in 1902, his son, T. A. Hardcastle, completed the remodelling of Horninghold into a ‘garden village’, building stone, brick and half-timbered houses in a neat and symmetrical pattern and surrounding them with ornamental shrubs and trees.
Between 1903 and 1913, the well-known Leicestershire architect H. L. Goddard worked on the re-modelling of the village; at its centre is a triangular green with a village sign made of oak, paid for with prize money won when the village was judged ‘the prettiest in Leicestershire’ in 1953.
Approached through wrought-iron gates and over a brook that runs along the front of the property, Horninghold Hall, set in 5¼ acres of immaculate gardens and grounds, takes pride of place within the village.
Extensively refurbished and improved in recent years — work included windows being replaced with modern casements set into the stone mullions, a central heating upgrade and a completely new roof — the main house offers some 6,750sq ft of stylish, well-planned living space, which is hardwired for television and internet; Gigaclear technology provides excellent data speeds, so working from home is a possibility in any room.
The accommodation includes a central reception hall, elegant drawing room, dining room, study and comfortable snug, a restored Victorian orangery, kitchen by Harborough Kitchens, large family room (the former snooker room) and a principal bedroom suite with two bathrooms, plus three further bedrooms and bathrooms.
Additional accommodation is provided in the detached one bedroom Brook Cottage and four refurbished apartments in the massive former stable block. The gardens are a delight, with pristine, south-facing lawns surrounded by mature specimen trees, including cedar and spruce, and a laurel shelter-belt to the driveway that ensures maximum privacy.
Horninghold Hall is for sale with King West. For more information, click here
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