With its classic Georgian home and colourful Italianate garden, Watkins Farm is the epitome of rural tranquillity.
The property was acquired by make-up artist Amanda Jackson Sytner and her husband, artist James Wedge in the 1990s and has benefited from their good taste and keen eye for design. Amanda boasts a portfolio of high profile clients including Dame Helen Mirren, Jerry Hall, Dame Vivienne Westwood and Jane Seymour and has based in Dorset since she moved from London. Watkins Farm is now on the market with Humberts at a guide price of £1.45 million.
The five-bedroom main house has the symmetrical façade typical of Georgian properties. Inside, it is beautifully presented throughout with light and airy interiors, flagstone floors, good ceiling heights, double hung sash casement windows, picture rails, window seats and some exposed roof timbers.
In the well-proportioned drawing-room, there is a smart panelled window seat from which the garden can be admired, and there are doors from the dining-room leading directly out onto the terrace.
Beyond the private south-facing terrace and entertaining area lies the principal lawn, sweeping down to the duck pond complete with island and duck house. Beyond the pond there is an orchard, and the lawn breaks in to a more informal grassed area studded with trees, which in turn leads to a delightful area of young broadleaf woodland comprising of mostly oak and ash. To the south of the house is a colourful Italianate garden from which a gate opens through to an enclosed and well-screened kitchen garden complete with fruit cage, greenhouse and side access gates to the drive.
Among Watkins Farm's range of outbuildings is a cottage, which was converted in the 1990s from former farm buildings and is handsome in its own right. The planning permission allows it to be used for holiday letting purposes.
An exceptional Queen Anne-style house in the heart of the Blackmore Vale
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A rolling Dorset estate with a picturesque 'Arts-and-Crafts' farmhouse at its heart
Blackdown House Farm at Briantspuddle was part of the once-great Bladon estate.
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