Some 25 miles north-east of Rockbourne as the crow flies, Mark McAndrew of Strutt & Parker is handling the sale of the enchanting, 303-acre Shroner Wood estate at Martyr Worthy, one of Hampshire’s most coveted locations, just north of the cathedral city of Winchester and south of the commuter hub of Basingstoke.
He quotes a guide price of £8m for the heavily wooded estate, which boasts a fine, 11-bedroom country house sitting centrally within its own land, surrounded by a small park with uninterrupted views over the rolling Hampshire countryside.
The interiors are elegant and contemporary where necessary, a pleasing mix of the traditional and the comforting. Original fireplaces abound, as do stone floors and wood panelling.
A highlight is the grand central staircase, which leads all the way up the three storey building, and the elegant billiard room.
The wisteria-clad house is approached up a drive through a long avenue of limes, which opens into private parkland dotted with magnificent pines and many other tree species. The drive continues through the park, with spurs accessing three estate cottages and culminating in a gravelled turning area bordered with box-hedged beds filled with roses and hydrangeas.
It was here, in 1883, that the young Edwin Hillier, scion of the Hillier family whose Winchester nurseries still operate to this day, bought the 81-acre Shroner Wood and established the seven-acre Shoner Wood Arboretum in the late 19th century, before selling the property in 1913.
Subsequent owners have continued to develop and maintain the woodland, which was recently described as ‘a collection of rare mature conifers and beautiful flowering shrubs set in a bluebell wood’.
Additional words by James Fisher
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