'Just look at those stairs. Just as an art form, they are bewitching, like the shell of a nautilus': The lure of buying a stairway to heaven

A couple of weeks ago my colleague Lotte Brundle wrote about a genuinely majestic house called Hunton Manor, a £14 million Hampshire masterpiece on an estate whose history stretches back to the days of Alfred the Great. It's a ten-bedroom house full of wonders — including a breathtaking drawing room with huge sash windows an ornamental cherry tree walk and a full-blown spa complex with bar and Jacuzzi — but what Lotte picked out as the highlight was the cantilevered spiral staircase, which is 'magnificent to look at, bringing to mind elegant entrances to grand parties, hosted in the manor’s many social rooms.'

Clearly it would be madness to buy a house simply because you've fallen in love with a staircase... and yet. Agents tell us again and again that people make their minds up about a home for the most exotic and surprising of reasons. My mother swears that she only bought the house where I spent 14 years of my childhood because she loved the wallpapered ceiling in the dining room. (In her defence, it was a very cool grid arrangement of vintage French posters.)

Back to staircases though, because our obsession with them is enduring. Hunton is a Georgian house at its heart, but in this week's print edition of Country Life, Penny Churchill looks at a nearly-new country house built in the Palladian style which also features a majestic staircase: Daisy Green, in Oxfordshire.

Wonderful — but why does what is simply a means of conveying people from one floor to another make such a difference to a house?

It's all about first impressions.

'The opulence of the double-height entrance with its polished stone floor and exquisite wrought iron metal staircase by Matt Livsey Hammond sets the scene,' writes Penny, creating an atmosphere and an ambience for guests before they even move beyond the hallway to the grand, formal entertaining spaces of this £6 million home in Wotton-under-Edge.

Never has that impression been more, well, impressive than at Arthington Hall, which was on the market 18 months ago at £7.5 million:

It's a truly wonderful piece of late 18th century architecture, so much so that Country Life's former architectural editor Giles Worsley once wrote a piece about Arthington which focused in large part on these stairs, which were created by a local architect called John Carr: 'The Arthington starcase shows Carr was as advanced as any of his metropolitan contemporaries in the dynamics of staircase design.'

Worsley did add — albeit only in a picture caption — that the unsupported stairs in the centre of Arthington's staircase 'bounce unnvervingly' when walked upon, but then again, practical concerns aren't usually paramount when it comes to staircases.

The Silos — a modern country home converted from a grain silo that's presently under offer — has a perfect example of a great-looking staircase which looks like it'd be a bit of a nightmare when it comes to getting a mattress up the stairs:

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Another modern country house currently for sale with a great staircase is Fowley Lane, in East Sussex, on with The Modern House at £3.5 million. It's in a marvellously pretty spot, but it's a building that is impressive and functional rather than a design which make your heart skip a beat. And so the spiral staircase provides a rate visual flourish:

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Slightly more manageable is Avishays in Somerset, which was on the market last year at £3.5 million, with a double staircase that's fantastically graceful, but has relatively steep steps and a sharp turn. On the plus side, sliding down those bannisters looks pretty sensational.

A curve is always tricky to negotiate when it comes to staircases — only the widest and shallowest make life easy, as seen in the work of Edwin Lutyens in the British Embassy in Washington, featured a few years ago in John Goodall's piece on the most beautiful staircases in the Country Life archive.

Other staircases, though, make things easy. At Storrs Hall in Lancashire — for sale via Davis & Bowring at £10 million — the wide sweep and high ceilings make getting up and down simplicity itself, regardless of the size of the furniture being lugged up and down.

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Even the visibility is good, thanks to the gorgeous stained-glass skylight above... but all things considered, the romance of an exquisite, elegantly curving staircase probably trumps everything else. Take the case of Calthwaite Hall, which sold last year:

'It seems silly when writing about a property like Calthwaite Hall to focus on something as simple as the stairs,' wrote James Fisher in his piece, mentioning the 'overwhelming wealth of features' that make it 'hard to know where to start.'

'But, just look at those stairs,' said James. 'Just as an art form, they are bewitching, like the shell of a nautilus.

'There are many reasons to buy many houses, but sometimes it’s just a tiny detail that makes it extra special.'

And that really says it all.

Hunton Manor is currently for sale via Savills; Daisy Green is currently for sale via Blue Book. Fowley Lane is for sale via The Modern House.