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Country houses for sale

A politely symmetrical 18th century Cotswolds house, owned by the same family for over 100 years

Penny Churchill

‘More than a farmhouse, but not quite a country house’, Paxford needs a loving hand to update the house and care for the beautiful land which surrounds it. Penny Churchill reports.

Simon Merton of Strutt & Parker’s Moreton-in-March office is handling the executor’s sale of the wonderfully authentic Grade II*-listed Paxford House in the tiny north Cotswold village of Paxford, halfway between Chipping Campden and Moreton-in-Marsh.

The agents quote a guide price of £2.255m for the property as a whole, or in four lots, with lots 1 and 2, comprising the house, its traditional barn and five acres of land, on offer at £1.7m; lot 3, a six-acre pasture field is for sale at £120,000; and lot 4, a 54.2-acre block of traditional ridge-and-furrow land, at £435,000.

Quaintly described in its Historic England listing as a ‘symmetrical small “polite” house retaining vernacular features’, Paxford House was originally built of the local Cotswold stone in about 1729, with a two-storey wing added in the mid 1800s. Owned by the same family for 100 years or more, it has been little altered since it was first acquired and now needs modernising throughout.

For Mr Merton, Paxford House is ‘more than a farmhouse, but not quite a country house’, that has all the hallmarks of a gentle-man’s village retreat or a small hunting lodge and many charming original features.

Approached off the village lane over a short drive, the front door opens into the hall, off which are the dining room, library, kitchen/breakfast room, study, snooker room and main staircase, leading to the main landing, drawing room and three bedrooms.

A secondary staircase leads to the second floor and three further bedrooms, and steps from the landing lead to an integral one-bedroom flat. Extensive outbuildings include a garage, three storerooms and a range of timber buildings to the south-west.

Paxford House is for sale as a whole property at a guide price of £2.255m through agents Strutt & Parker. Lots 1 and 2 comprise the house, its traditional barn and five acres for £1.7m, lot 3 is a six-acre pasture field for £120,000 and lot 4 is a 54.2-acre block of traditional ridge-and-furrow land, at £435,000. Click here for more information and images.