A £1/2m 6-bed Tudor lodge surrounded by an estate (…an Essex council estate …

Posted on by Listify Me

By
Oliver Wadeson

Last updated at 3:47 PM on 20th February 2012

On paper it sounds like an unmissable bargain: Little Belhus House, a six-bedroom, Grade II listed 17th Century hunting lodge in great repair – with a price tag of £550,000. There must be a drawback … Well, take a step outside and you see it – Sixties social housing encircles the lodge and has meant the house has been on the market for two years and has just had its price cut by £50,000.

For centuries, occupants of the house, parts of which date from Tudor times, would have enjoyed uninterrupted views of the countryside.

From the 16th Century to the mid-20th Century, neighbours were few and far between – the most notable being the aristocratic Barrett-Lennard family, who lived in the grand Belhus House estate and were landlords of the lodge in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Ten-year-project: Little Nelhus House in South Ockenden, Essex

Then in the Fifties, London County Council (LCC) bought 1,200 acres of farmland near the estate in South Ockendon, Essex, and began to rehouse families whose homes had been destroyed in the Blitz.

Belhus House, which was occupied by the Army during the war and fell into disrepair, was demolished. The estate is now a country park and golf course.

Within a decade, the tiny parish of South Ockendon was transformed into a town of prefabricated houses and flats, since replaced by modern housing. Little Belhus House, however, was spared – the LCC renovated the property and divided it into three flats.

In 1967, the urban encroachment around the house took a dramatic turn when the LCC’s successor, the Greater London Council, built the new roads lined by small family houses that now encircle the Tudor walls of the half-acre garden.

Little Belhus House was later sold back into private ownership and converted to two dwellings, the main six-bedroom house and a small, privately owned annexe underneath a wing of the house.

Current owners Peter and Tina King are selling after 13 years there and, far from seeing themselves as lord and lady of the manor, insist that they feel like equal members of the community.

‘We don’t see it as “them and us” at all,’ says Peter, 65, who ran an electronics shop in Basildon, Essex, before he retired. ‘This is a large house but it’s low-density housing in the roads around us and the houses all have big gardens. Most are now privately owned.’ Peter and Tina, 59, who each have two grown-up children from previous marriages, want to downsize in Suffolk. They have never known Little Belhus without the housing around it and have been more interested in looking inwards and restoring the interior.

Home sweet home: Peter and Tina King in the wood-paneled sitting room of their historic lodge

‘We can thank the LCC for saving Little Belhus – they repaired the roof when they bought it. But the place was in a bad state of repair when we got it,’ says Peter.

This seems hard to believe. Some of the rooms are lined with oak panelling and have been sensitively renovated to ensure that historical features have been left intact, including a coat of arms in the porch given by James I to a local knight in the 17th Century, 400-year-old fleurs-de-lys embossed into wood panelling, a bell tower dating from 1763 and, in the garden, a mulberry tree imported from China during the early 1700s.

The house has a light, spacious feel with a large dining room and generous living room. Upstairs some bedrooms have oak panelling and the only hint of modernity is the pine bathroom and the kitchen in a wing added by the LCC.

Enclosed: How Little Belus House sits behind a walled garden on the council estate

‘We spent ten years doing up the place,’ says Peter. ‘These days people seem to want to knock things back and open up this room or that, but this house doesn’t need that – it is perfectly proportioned.’ But for all its charm, Dean Heaviside, of selling agents Fine, is under no illusions as to the impact of the surrounding housing.

‘£550,000 gives you all the benefits of a period, listed house with six bedrooms. It’s a great buy for someone looking for that lifestyle, but at that price you also accept it’s surrounded by a housing estate,’ he says.

The Kings believe there are plenty more historic features to discover and hope its buyers will share their enthusiasm. ‘It’s time for us to move on and leave Little Belhus to work its magic on another family,’ says Tina.

fine.co.uk

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