Cadhay, an exceptionally beautiful Grade I country house with magnificent gardens in East Devon, and listed in Simon Jenkins’ ‘England’s Thousand Best Houses’, is available for holiday lets from Helpful Holidays.
Built around 1550 and set in fifty acres of gardens and farmland, it’s near Ottery St Mary, just five miles from the coast at Sidmouth. A treat for a group of garden lovers, the house sleeps twenty-two guests in twelve bedrooms with eight bathrooms and is on offer from Ј2,819 per week (around Ј128 per person).
Cadhay is approached via a shady avenue of limes; guests can wander through the magnificent three-acre garden, described as understated, gracious and beautiful, which fades via a ha-ha into countryside. There are fine trees, cedars, fountains and walkways, herbaceous borders, yew hedges, huge lawns and a half-acre lake, formerly a medieval fishpond. There is also a walled garden with well-tended allotments and 50 acres of farmland around the house.
The original Tudor house was built by local lawyer, John Haydon, who married the de Cadehay heiress. A long gallery was added during Queen Elizabeth’s I reign and later Jacobean additions created a lovely central courtyard, the ‘Court of the Sovereigns’, so called because its overlooked by four carved images of Tudor monarchs dating from 1617. The enclosed courtyard has chequerboard-effect stone and flint walls and a huge wooden table and benches for al fresco dining.
Full of character but with modern comforts, inside there are good-sized rooms with leaded windows, granite mullions and original fireplaces furnished with antiques, comfy seats, paintings and designer curtains. The imposing dining room which has an 18th century moulded ceiling and a huge carved stone open fire, leads to three fine interconnecting living rooms – the living hall, library and Georgian panelled drawing room. Also on the ground floor is the large farmhouse-style kitchen with its Aga and electric range cooker and a twin ensuite bedroom. A further seven bedrooms are on the first floor, while four more are located on the top level in the East and West attics.
The house also has a civil wedding licence in several rooms including the magnificent arch-braced Roof Chamber which dates from about 1420 and was retained from the Great Hall of an earlier house on the site; professional catering can be arranged.
