An apartment for sale in the iconic mansion that hosted George III's coronation banquet
Albury Park, a great country house whose design is the work of some of Britain's greatest ever architects, is these days divided into wonderful apartments — and one of the finest of them is currently up for sale.
'It would be hard to beat the great panoramic view from Newland's Corner on Albury Down,' wrote John Leyland in Country Life back in 1897, the year the magazine was first published. 'And in the midst of this beautiful country lies Albury Park, its mansion and gardens — an ideal country home in quite an ideal land.'
Praise doesn't get much higher, and almost 130 years later we're happy to report that both Newlands Corner and Albury Park are just as beautiful as they were back in Leyland's day.
Just as beautiful, but in the case of Albury Park also very different indeed. This majestic country home was for three centuries one of the most celebrated country houses in Surrey, both for its setting and its architecture. The original manor house was turned into a 17th century mansion by George Evelyn, with gardens by his celebrated brother John Evelyn; it was remodelled in the 18th century by one of the great Georgian architects, Sir John Soane; and then in the 19th century it was altered once again, this time by Augustus Pugin, the man who designed the Houses of Parliament. Architectural pedigrees do not come any stronger, and the house is Grade II*-listed despite (and indeed because of) the many changes that have taken place.
Albury has been featured several more times in Country Life, including in a pair of articles in 1950, when Arthur Oswald talked through many of the changes made by the various Dukes and Duchesses of Northumberland down the centuries. It's also hosted the great and the good — not least King George III, whose coronation banquet is said to have been held at Albury in 1761.
All that changed in 1965, following the death of the Dowager Duchess, this Grade II*-listed home was sold to a charity, the now-defunct Country Houses Association, who turned it into 37 apartments. It later changed hands a couple more times, and the 37 small apartments were eventually converted (after a slightly painful process catalogued by a Channel 4 documentary) into a series of larger, more luxurious apartments which offer the beauty and grandeur of country mansion life at the price of an equivalently-sized house in one of the villages in this pretty corner of Surrey.
One of the apartments within Albury Park is a case in point that is now for sale at £995,000 — and it's a utterly charming. With bright rooms lit by huge windows, and given drama by the high ceilings and period features, it's a flat that offers 2,249 sq ft of space spread over three floors.
The sitting/dining room and kitchen share the first floor, while the principal bedroom with dressing room (along with its en-suite and dressing room) occupies the second floor.
There's also a mezzanine over the master bedroom, ideal as a study area — and if you need another bedroom, the dressing room could easily be configured as one.
Upstairs, there's a smaller bedroom and a study area, while above that on the fourth floor is one of the highlights: a roof terrace. It's not enormous — 26ft by 7¾ft, or roughly 8m by 2.4m — but it's a place from which the new owners will be able to watch the seasons alter, the hues of the leaves turn from green to gold and brown, and soak up the sun or read the papers on a lazy Sunday with a cafetiere of decent coffee.
Outside, you have five acres of Albury Park's beautiful grounds to share with your neighbours — neighbours with whom you'll also share the freehold, and the running costs. As you might expect with a property of this type (and grounds this beautiful), there is a service charge listed by the agents as £14,500 a year.
Does that change the value proposition here? Naturally so, particularly bearing in mind that the same purchase price will buy you a detached, four-bedroom family home nearby. You'll miss out on the grounds and grandeur, though.
And if you love the idea but feel that this particular flat is either too small or too pricey, there are a couple of other options for sale in Albury Park right now: a larger three-bedroom home at just under £1.6 million, and a one-bedroom flat at just £350,000.
Flat 4, Albury Park Mansion, is for sale via Knight Frank — see more details.
