A magnificent Cotswolds manor for sale that was home to one of Britain's best-loved — and funniest — poets
Norcote House sits amid 20 blissful acres of the Cotswolds. Penny Churchill takes a look.
Back in 2015, when the poet and broadcaster Pam Ayres and her husband, Dudley Russell, were selling handsome Georgian, Grade II-listed Norcote House, their cherished Cotswold home of 30 years set in 20 acres of pasture, paddocks and woodland on the outskirts of Cirencester, Ms Ayres wondered what advice she should give the next owners and wrote: ‘Shall I tell them there are bulbs already peeping? Shall I ask them to tread lightly where my faithful dogs are sleeping? Shall I point to little saplings which to mighty trees have grown? Or slip away in silence; let them make this place their own.’ So many questions; it makes you wonder why Pam didn't just ask her husband.
The conversation with the buyers at the time probably never took place, although, a decade later, as a beautifully refurbished Norcote House comes back to the market at a guide price of £3.5 million through joint agents Savills and Cirencester-based Sharvell Property, it is clear that the vendors have indeed made this very special place their own.
Approached along a private driveway less than two miles east of the lively market town of Cirencester, Norcote House combines classic proportions with a calm, design-led interior that provides more than 8,000sq ft of easy family living space on three floors.
Accommodation includes entrance and inner halls, a large kitchen/breakfast room, dining and drawing rooms, a study, cellar, sitting room, boot room, office, cinema room and gym, six bedrooms and six bathrooms.
The charming, wisteria-clad coach house provides two additional self-contained units: a one-bedroom, ground-floor apartment with a two-bedroom apartment above.
The house sits well within its own land, which lies predominantly to the rear, creating a strong sense of space and seclusion with open views over the surrounding countryside.
‘Whether maintained as parkland, put to equestrian use, or reimagined as a rewilding or conservation project, Norcote House offers a combination of scale, quality and land that is increasingly rare in the Cotswolds,’ says selling agent Plum Fenton of Savills.
Norcote House is for sale through Savills and Sharvell Property at £3.5 million — see more details.
