'One of the finest houses in Cheshire' blends Georgian architecture, modern exoticism and space to park your helicopter

Cheshire has long been one of the wealthiest counties in England, and there are no signs of an exodus of money. Thus, encourage by a recent flurry of sales at the upper end of the Cheshire country-house market, Charlie Kannreuther of Savills in Chester seeks ‘offers over £8 million’ for Georgian, Grade II*-listed Stretton Hall.

The house is located in the hamlet of Stretton, 2½ miles from Malpas, which is a greatly sought-after part of south Cheshire, bounded by the Chester-Whitchurch road to the east, the Wrexham-Nantwich road to the north, the River Dee to the west and the county border with Shropshire to the south.

‘Today’s active buyers in Cheshire tend to be people who have already made their money and are looking for outstanding houses that reflect the lifestyle they enjoy,’ Mr Kannreuther says.

‘Georgian houses are relatively rare in Cheshire and Stretton Hall is one of the finest in south Cheshire, a quintessential English country house, which stands prominently in the landscape with dramatic westerly views to the Welsh Hills,’ he adds.

Set in some 48 acres of gardens, woodland and paddocks, Stretton Hall stands on high ground at the end of a straight lime avenue and offers more than 11,000sq ft of ‘exceptional’ accommodation, including eight reception rooms, five bedroom suites and three further bedrooms and bathrooms.

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Highlights include the elegant reception hall with its screen of scagliola columns; the main drawing room linked to the dining room by substantial double doors; the pink drawing room with its dramatic Venetian window; and the delightful oak-floored morning room.

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The impressive family kitchen/diner has Chalon kitchen units, beyond which is a spectacular back hall with rows of stone columns, a vaulted ceiling and double doors leading to a large garden room.

A grand mahogany staircase leads to the upstairs bedrooms. It's really quite something, and the agent's claim in the listing — calling this 'one of the finest houses in Cheshire' — is hard to deny.

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Secondary accommodation is provided in the converted coach house, the two-bedroom Stables Flat and the two-bedroom Stretton Hall Cottage, which is currently let on an Assured Shorthold Tenancy.

Mature gardens, split into garden rooms, and grounds have evolved over the generations and provide a wonderful backdrop. They include various Italian and terrace gardens, areas of topiary, a large walled garden, a pond and a tennis court.

The equestrian facilities are second to none, with a series of railed paddocks with field shelters and an all-weather outdoor school. The stabling isn't just for horses: as well as two newer stabling buildings, it incorporates the original 17th-century stable block which has been extended to house a helicopter.

According to an article in Cheshire Life in April 1950, Stretton was owned by the Mainwarings of Ightfield, Shropshire, in the early 16th century, when most of the estate was acquired from Sir George Mainwaring and his wife, Anne, by Cheshire landowners Richard Wright, Arthur Starkey and Thomas Barnston.

The estate was later divided, with most of the land passing to the Leche family of Carden, with Wright retaining the Stretton estate. In the early 18th century, the Revd Thomas Leche, rector of Tilston, acquired Stretton by marrying the heiress Catherine Wright. Their son, John, died childless, leaving Stretton to his cousin, Maj John Leche, a younger brother of William Leche of Carden. When he, too, died childless in 1815, the land passed to his nephew, William’s son John, thereby uniting the neighbouring estates.

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In his book Cheshire Country Houses (1995), the present Stretton Hall is described by the architect and architectural historian Peter De Figueiredo as ‘a chaste symmetrical Georgian brick house erected in 1763 for John Leche, son of the rector of Tilston. It has a central block of two storeys over a basement and two single storey wings. There is a touch of grandeur in the entrance hall with its screen of scagliola columns but the fine neo-Classical fireplace is a later replacement’.

Little is known of the previous building, beyond a description of ‘a respectable mansion situated in well wooded grounds’. Since the stabling of an earlier 17th-century building is still standing today and is of Tudor workmanship, the present hall must be at least the third building on the site, given that references exist of a manor there long before the Tudor era. The Georgian building may be roughly dated both by the style of construction and by a Leche family letter of 1765, which mentions ‘a fine new mansion nearing completion at Stretton’.

Following John Leche’s death, Stretton became a secondary home on the Carden estate. In 1912, the Jacobean Carden Hall was destroyed by fire, after which the then Sir John Leche moved to Stretton Hall and created the gardens with their radiating avenues and yew hedges.

Stretton Hall is for sale via Savills at £8 million — see more details.

Mr Kannreuther is also handling the sale of Grade II-listed Stretton Old Hall in Tilston Road, Stretton, a gentrified former farmhouse that, according to its listing, dates from the late 17th century. Built of brown brick under a grey slate roof with a two-storey 17th-century porch and a 1½-storey wing of two windows, it was re-fronted in the early 19th century.

He quotes a guide price of £2.965m for what is now a beautifully renovated main house with a garden cottage, extensive outbuildings set in a little under eight acres of grassland and Mediterranean-style gardens created by the owners from a near-blank canvas some 12 years ago.

Featured on Gardeners World in 2018, the owners won Channel 4’s Garden of the Year competition in 2022. The main house offers four bright and cheerful reception rooms, a study, six bedrooms and four bathrooms.

Stretton Old Hall is for sale via Savills — see more pictures and details.