On the outskirts of the delightful cathedral city of Worcester lies a grand country mansion with glorious gardens, stables and a paddock that's for sale at a price that big city dwellers will struggle to believe.
Every so often a house comes to the market which will make metropolitan buyers across Britain sit up and question their life choices.
This beautiful home in the village of Claines, a couple of miles from Worcester, is just such a place: a seven-bedroom mansion measuring almost 9,5000sq ft and set in three acres of gardens and land, for sale at £1.25 million. Considering that’s what you’d pay for a smart flat in Birmingham or a terraced house in Hackney, it’s hard to believe what’s on offer here.
Rose Place – for sale via Andrew Grant and Knight Frank – is a Grade II*-listed home dating back to around 1810, brick-built with a strikingly-pretty ashlar stone façade that projects real grandeur from the start.
Inside the house that feeling only intensifies in the flagstone-floored entrance hall, flanked with Ionic columns and with a cantilevered staircase beyond that wends its way up to the first floor.
The plaster mouldings, ornate architraves and high ceilings of the hallway continue throughout many of the rooms, from the drawing room and dining room to the study and library/garden room, all in superb condition having been recently restored by a nearby specialist.
The six main bedrooms plus a nursery are arranged over the first and second floors, with the master bedroom enjoying fine views across the local golf course to the Malvern Hills.
Two further bedrooms and the nursery (which could equally be used as a dressing room for the master suite) are on the first floor, while the two double bedrooms on the second floor are both en-suite.
Outside, there are beautiful walled gardens laid out by garden designer David Santini, with a Victorian-style greenhouse and a brick-built arbour.
It’s also an ideal house for those who love horses: within the grounds is a Coach House that currently incorporates stables, while there is also an outbuilding used as a tack room and an enclosed paddock.
The village itself, just on the northern edge of Worcester, has easy access to the road network – the M5 is a couple of miles away – while trains can whisk you to Birmingham in under an hour or London in just over two.
Rose Place is for sale via Andrew Grant and Knight Frank at £1.25 million – see more details and pictures.
The magic of Dorset: Radical writers, glorious countryside and just far enough from London
Those in the know have peeled off the main routes to the South-West and made this county of contrasts their
Best country houses for sale this week
Exquisite homes in Devon, Yorkshire and Oxfordshire are among the wonders in our round-up of the best homes for sale
My favourite painting: The Bishop of Worcester
The Bishop of Worcester chooses his favourite painting for our Easter Issue
