We’ve all had our fights with flat-pack furniture. I remember moving into my first house a few years ago, and the rage and horror that overwhelmed me when assembling various tables, a bed and bookshelves still hurts my soul to this day.
Imagine, if you will, the difficulty then in assembling a flat-pack house. I remember being at school and learning about post-war ‘Pre-Fabs’. I have watched enough Grand Designs to see houses built in workshops and then shipped to their locations.
But they were all modern. Falconers, which sits on a hill above Salcombe in Devon, is not modern. It is a fine manor house, built in the Kentish Wealden style by skilled craftsmen for the Federated Home Grown Timber Merchants Association (FHGTMA) using English oak. It is for sale with Signature Spaces for £6 million.
Quite an interesting story this one. Gazing upon the property, as you currently are, you might think it is hundreds of years old. You are incorrect. It is, in fact, less than a century old, and was built, by the aforementioned FHGTMA for the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park in 1925, as an example of the best in English architecture. Looking at it, we might agree.
One person who did agree was a certain Lady Moore, who, having seen it at the exhibition, bought it, then searched for a spot to put it. Her choice was seven acres above Salcombe, where it stands today.
Falconers, as it became known, was transported brick-by-brick and rebuilt into the eight bedroom house we see today. Set over three floors, the property’s centrepiece is its great hall, which extends the height of the building. The bedrooms and reception rooms flank either side of the hall, which also boasts a gallery. We like galleries.
Reception rooms and amenities include a drawing room, an oak room, study, office and kitchen with breakfast room, and a sitting room. The main bedroom suite also boasts its own balcony, for maximum enjoyment of the views.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. The rear of the property is draped in wisteria, as all good country manor houses are, and the garden extends to some seven acres, featuring lawned areas, a wall with espaliered fruit trees, woodlands for privacy and a working helipad, as well as a four-acre paddock.
Salcombe itself is just minutes away, with all the amenities (both land and water based) that you could possibly need, and trains from Plymouth (24 miles away) reach London in 2hrs and 40 mins. If you have a helicopter, it takes just over an hour.
‘Falconers has a fascinating, unique lineage which will appeal to a buyer who would like to own an exquisite house with an important place in history,’ says Prunella Martin, director of Signature Spaces. ‘Falconers is a rarity, such beauty, an outstandingly private location and yet just minutes from Salcombe’s prized beaches and town. I have sold many prime properties in the South Hams area and yet Falconers is in a class of its own.’
Credit: John D Wood & Co
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