A commutable country estate that has it all: a lake, its own cricket pitch and a vast swathe of Surrey to call your own

In the 1840s and 1850s, the rapid expansion of the Victorian rail network enabled high-flying lawyers, bankers and captains of industry to commute daily from their grand country homes in Surrey to offices in London and elsewhere.

Today, time-sensitive buyers who come to this county in search of a proper country estate may find what they’re looking for in the ancient village of Send, three miles south of Woking and 5½ miles north of Guildford, with Heathrow airport, Gatwick airport and Farnborough private airport, respectively 13 miles, 19 miles and 15½ miles distant. Here, Phillippa Dalby-Welsh of Savills Country Department is handling the of £9.85 million sale of illustrious Grade II-listed Sendholme in Potters Lane, Send.

This magnificent house at the top of this page stands in 121 acres of historic gardens, woodland and water meadows on sandy ground within the Lower Wey Valley. For those that don't want so much land, however, the estate is being sold either as a whole or in three lots.

Lot 1, on offer at a guide price of £8.35m, comprises the main house, a two-bedroom staff/guest cottage, a gate lodge and extensive garaging and outbuildings, all set in 65 acres of formal and ornamental gardens and grounds overlooking a large lake.

Amenities include a tennis court, stable block, manège, cricket pavilion and cricket pitch, and an old air-raid shelter dating from the days of Cold War. How many homes let you host your own cricket match while also sheltering you from nuclear war?

Lot 2, at £500,000, comprises farm buildings and stores set in 7½ acres. Lot 3, on offer at a guide of £1m, comprises 48½ acres of land to the east of Potters Lane, currently let to a local farmer.

According to its Historic England listing, Sendholme was built in 1863 by the Victorian country-house architect George Devey, best known for his association with the Rothschild family for whom he designed a number of buildings, including the stables and riding school on the Mentmore estate in Buckinghamshire.

He also worked for the Duke of Sutherland at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, where he designed lodges and cottages in the vernacular style of the Sussex Weald. His style was later developed by other leading architects, among them Richard Norman Shaw and Charles Voysey, both of whom studied under him and went on to become founder members of the Arts-and-Crafts movement.

Devey’s client at Sendholme was William Hargreaves, whose daughter Mary married Sir Joseph Leese, a distinguished lawyer, former Liberal MP for Accrington and a first-class cricketer, who was created 1st Baronet ‘of Sendholme in Send in the County of Surrey’ in 1908. He died in 1914.

However, the title died out following the death of the 4th Baronet in 1979. Sendholme’s third owner was a Mr A. H. Lancaster, a retired paint merchant who bought the estate in 1895. The Lancasters lived there until the death of Miss Eveline Lancaster, aged 100, in August 1976.

In all, nine owners have lived there, the last of whom is the present owner, who bought the estate with her late husband in 2002. In 2015, they extended the main house at ground-floor level and enlarged the kitchen area, which was connected to a leisure wing via a south-facing orangery.

A notable contribution to the gardens was the addition of a cascading water feature leading down from the house to the woodland area below.

In all, Sendholme provides more than 15,800sq ft of gracious living space on two main floors with further attic rooms in the gables, and access at ground-floor level to a series of storage rooms, with a wine cellar in the basement.

‘Voluminous and inter-connecting’ reception areas throughout the ground floor include the sitting room and dining room, both of which feature dramatic fenestration and decorative ceilings. Other ground-floor rooms of note are the drawing room, library, kitchen/breakfast room, orangery and sun room.

At first-floor level, the principal bedroom suite offers glorious views over the surround-ing countryside towards the North Downs.

Both the principal and guest suites have recently been redesigned and redecorated. Also on this floor are a further bedroom suite, a laundry room and a sewing room.

The second floor houses five additional bedrooms, two bathrooms and a television room, with access to the roof-top terrace and those same far-reaching views.

Sendholme is for sale through Savills — see more details.