A country house near Windsor that could be straight from the pages of a Jilly Cooper novel

Some 30-odd years ago, Francis Michael Claessens and his young family were looking for their Holy Grail: a place to live near Windsor, and close to the hallowed grounds of the Guards Polo Club in Berkshire.

It took them four years to find the right place, but they got there eventually when they found the imposing, Grade II-listed Barkham Square Park, a house that came with 16½ acres of parkland on the edge of the village of Barkham, three miles south-west of Wokingham. Now, those young children have grown up and created lives of their own, most of them living back in the Netherlands, and the Claessenses have decided to join them. Thus, Barkham Square Park is for sale via Savills at a guide price of £4.25 million.

Mr Claessens and his wife ‘found the best of both worlds at Barkham Square Park’, says Paul Finnegan of Savills Country Department, a place where they could enjoy family life while also indulging their passion for polo.

That passion was so strong that being near to the polo club itself seemingly wasn’t enough, as Finnegan explains: ‘They created a virtual “outreach” to the Guards Club, establishing first-class equestrian and polo facilities, which saw many a high-goal thriller played out over the years.’ The net result of what's been done here is breathtaking; the sort of place you can imagine Jilly Cooper visiting, and immediately being inspired to pen a new novel.

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Barkham Square stands in beautifully manicured parkland interspersed with majestic oak trees. The Georgian grandeur of the house is reflected in its painted brick elevations, prominent chimneys and striking full-height semi-circular bow on the southern façade.

The main house offers 17,426sq ft of elegant accommodation on three floors, including a reception hall, three principal reception rooms, a study, kitchen/breakfast room, utility and two guest-bedroom suites on the ground floor.

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Above, there is a principal bedroom suite, four further bedrooms and three bath/shower rooms on the first floor, and a further bedroom and dressing room on the second floor.

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Following their original purchase, the Claessens significantly enhanced the grounds with an extensive planting programme that included a magnificent giant sequoia.

To the north, a separate driveway leads to an impressive array of outbuildings, including a splendid stable block with 12 loose boxes and a tack room, plus a massive period barn. Further land may be available to rent by separate negotiation.

A record compiled by historian David French reveals a convoluted ownership of Barkham Square and its estate from the 18th century onwards, when the house was let to a succession of gentry tenants with the land worked by local farmers. By 1796, however, the freehold of the 214-acre estate had been acquired by Peter Green of Crookham, Newbury, who already owned a large estate and farms in Hampshire, as well as farms at Greenham, near Newbury. An early exponent of large-scale commercial farming, he was at the forefront of efforts to improve agricultural techniques and the quality of livestock.

Green was active in county affairs and served as High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1810–11. In 1824, he was appointed deputy lieutenant of the county. He was also the greatest beneficiary of the Barkham enclosure award in 1821, which saw the Barkham Square estate increase in size from 214 to 344 acres. Unfortunately for him, much of the additional acreage was heathland, which he was never able to bring into production due to the collapse of agricultural prices at the end of the Napoleonic Wars when property values also plummeted.

Beset by financial difficulties throughout the 1820s, Green kept his Barkham Square estate afloat by holding annual livestock auctions as he tried, unsuccessfully, to offload his heavily mortgaged assets. Eventually, in 1833, the Barkham Square estate was sold to William Cook of Roydon Hall in Kent, who let the property to a succession of gentlemen farmers.

In 1904, the Square was let to E. M. Sturges, one of those gentleman farmers. In 1913, Mrs Sturges bought the Barkham Square estate and, following her husband’s death in 1934, continued to farm it until her own death in 1944.

The estate then passed to their surviving son, Lt-Gen Sir Robert Sturges, who sold the property in 1948 for £27,000. Subsequent owners included Sir Guy Kempton Lawrence in the 1950s and 1960s, the Jordanian royal family in the 1980s, then, briefly a golf course company, before the present owners acquired it in 1993.

Barkham Square Park is for sale at £4.25 million via Savills — see more details.

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This feature originally appeared in the October 22, 2025 issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.