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.
Credit: Symonds and Sampson
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