For those wishing to get away from it all — yet still be able to pick up a pint of milk without a 45-minute round-trip — Peter Daborn of Savills in Telford quotes £1.1m for Mount House at Llanfair Caereinion, eight miles from Welshpool, Powys. It ticks all the boxes of seclusion and beauty, while also being a practical place to live.
This handsome Victorian villa us set in some 10 acres of woodland and pasture on high ground on the edge of the town, with glorious views towards the Welsh mountains.
The house, which is unlisted, was built in 1873 for solicitor Edward Pickmere who, as town clerk of Liverpool, was associated with the building, in the 1880s, of the Vyrnwy reservoir in Powys, which involved flooding the head of the Vyrnwy valley and submerging the village of Llanwddyn in order to supply Liverpool with fresh water.
Meticulously maintained by its current owners during their 28-year tenure, the house, which is flooded with natural light at all times of the day, offers 6,230sq ft of impressive accommodation on three floors.
There are five reception rooms, a glazed orangery (a replica of the 1873 original), a kitchen/breakfast room, cellar and wine store.
Upstairs, there's a hobby room and a sitting room, as well as nine bedrooms and four bathrooms.
Llanfair Caereinion is not a big place — with an estimated population of around 1,800, almost half of whom are spread across the local area rather than in the town itself, it's actually one of the smallest market towns in Britain. Yet a market town it is, with pubs, shops, parks, schools, a leisure centre, and even a local football club: to support: Llanfair United.
There's also a narrow-gauge railway, the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway, which is as close to a real-life Thomas the Tank Engine set-up as we've seen in many years.
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