A picture-perfect Devon idyll where you can 'ride ponies and swim in the river'
The glorious Knapp House is the stuff of childhood dreams — as generations of former residents have found.
When the former BBC and ITV television journalist Michele Romaine and her husband bought Knapp House at East Anstey near Exmoor in Devon, they were looking for somewhere that offered space, character and a change of pace.
Now, the time has come to downsize from this beautiful nine-bedroom home, and the couple have put the house up for sale for £2.45m through Jackson-Stops in Taunton.
The Arts-and-Crafts house needed some work, so the couple began an extensive renovation programme that revealed several stories.
Believed to have been built as a weekend retreat for a shipping magnate who supplied coal and water to ships going through Suez, it was converted into a prep school during the Second World War when Hillsbrow School in Surrey was evacuated.
The names of the school houses are still written in the attic cupboards and several documents from that period surfaced during the works. One references that Andrew Lyle, of the Tate & Lyle dynasty, was a pupil at the school. ‘He had a sugar cube next to his name in the school register so that the headmaster could remember who he was,’ explains Ms Romaine. The boys lived a charmed life, where after lessons they 'rode ponies and swam in the River Barle — a real Exmoor childhood.’
As well as those nine bedrooms, the house also has a large kitchen/breakfast room with an Aga and several reception rooms boasting far-reaching views across Exmoor.
Downstairs is a cinema room, wine cellar, gym and garden room.
In the nine-acre grounds, meanwhile, are four holiday lodges.
Knapp House is for sale via Jackson-Stops — see more details.
