A house with 'privacy, elegance and unparalleled beauty' — and a medieval castle in the garden
This Arts-and-Crafts-inspired home has a truly magnificent setting on the Pembrokeshire coast.
'The pleasant feeling of remoteness is better found in the recess of Pembrokeshire than perhaps anywajere in England or Wales,' wrote Country Life's legendary architectural editor, Christopher Hussey, back in 1939.
It's a place, he added, that 'has all the attributes of an island but that of being surrounded by water: a windswept landscape of its own, with the tang of the sea about it... and innumerable castles.'
Manorbier Castle, photographed for Country Life in 1939.
The place that moved Hussey to such purple prose was Manorbier Castle, in the village of the same name, located a few miles along the coast from Tenby. It's a classic Norman castle, begun in around 1090, and pretty much untouched after about 1300. The hills, the beach and the Celtic Sea beyond combine to create an almost impossibly idyllic setting for an ancient ruin. And if you were to buy Long Park — on the market at £1.6 million — all this would become the backdrop to your life each day.
Built in 1936 during the Arts-and-Crafts Movement and taking inspiration from the Voysey style, the crowning glory of Long Park is its south-west facing elevated terrace, which offers a panoramic perspective over rolling hills to Manorbier Castle itself, running all the way to the water.
The current owners have lived in this four-bedroom house for the first time in 30 years — just as you guess, for who would leave a place like this? In their stint the house has undergone a full restoration, keeping this elegant 90-year-old home ideal for 21st century life.
The spacious kitchen/dining room is the hub of the home and has bespoke cabinetry, as well as doors that lead out to the aforementioned terrace.
All four of the bedrooms are upstairs, and all have en-suite bathrooms.
In short, it's a fine home in an even finer setting. As the agent James Skudder puts it, Long Park is, ‘the embodiment of privacy, elegance and unparalleled beauty’.
Long Park in Manorbier is for sale via Country Living Group — see more details.
