A magnificent Grade I listed house in Northumberland that 'retains the grandeur of a bygone era'

(Image credit: Strutt & Parker)

published 25 August 2022

What is truly ingenious about Milbourne Hall, found Pevsner, is that nearly every room is oval in shape.

Built of local iron-flecked Belsay stone, architect John Paterson’s design includes an octagonal courtyard, central rotunda, a Doric-columned portico and octagonal library, all arranged with immense symmetry; other interesting features include classical friezes, beautiful fireplaces and a secret staircase.

In a little hamlet close by the Mill Burn, a tributary of the River Pont (not far from Belsay and Morpeth), there are four bedrooms in the main house (although the principal suite’s dressing room is large enough to double as an extra), plus a two-storey, four-bedroom apartment, which could be kept separate or reintegrated with the main part.

The magnificent property finds itself on the market via Strutt & Parker with a guide price of £3.95 million.

The courtyard contains three carriage houses comprising three, three and two bedrooms, ideal for rental income. Outside, the 24 acres of land offer everything you’d expect from a house of this calibre, with a meandering drive, formal lawn, summerhouse in a walled garden, mature trees, pond, paddock, terracing and stables.

The peaceful hamlet of Milbourne is situated to the north-west of Ponteland where you’ll find a secondary school, medical centre and all day-to-day amenities, plus a golf club and leisure centre.

There’s a great primary in the neighbouring village of Belsay, rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, and for a wider range of shops and restaurants, Morpeth, Newcastle and Gateshead are all within easy reach and offer good transportation links.

Milbourne House is currently on the market via Strutt & Parker with a guide price of £3.95 million — see more pictures or enquire with the agent for further details.

See more properties for sale in the area.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

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Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.

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