After weeks of delay caused by the bad weather earlier in the year, spring has finally sprung in the Cotswolds and this week’s COUNTRY LIFE welcomes the launch of the first wave of fine country houses to hit the market in the region, with more to follow in the coming weeks. Setting the pace in the fashionable south Cotswolds-at a guide price of £12 million through Savills (020-7409 8885)-is Grade II-listed Lasborough Park at Kingscote, five miles from Tetbury, famous for its splendid architecture and royal connections.
Built by the neo-Gothic architect James Wyatt in 1794 for Edmund Estcourt, whose family owned most of the surrounding farmland, Lasborough Park stands high on the northern slope of a spectacular hidden valley known only to a favoured few. Even the name is designed to weed out those not ‘in the loop’: it’s pronounced Larsborough and, if you didn’t already know that, you’re unlikely to be a regular at one of Gloucestershire’s smartest private shoots, where Lasborough’s 55 acres provide three of the day’s most challenging drives.
With its embattled parapet and four corner towers, Lasborough Park typifies the English Tudor-Gothic style embraced by Wyatt in the latter part of his career. According to its English Heritage listing, the house was altered and enlarged in the 19th century, possibly by the Holford family, who may have lived there during the construction of nearby Westonbirt House.
The house has some 15,000sq ft of colourful living space spread over three floors, with a vaulted basement transformed into the ultimate teenage hangout. The ground floor is a mix of the grand and the informal, with an imposing front door leading through octagonal and inner halls to the grand drawing room, cosier morning room and formal dining room, all of which have wonderful views across the valley. A library, a study and a country kitchen complete the downstairs picture.
A cantilevered stone staircase leads to the first floor, where Wyatt comes into his own, especially in the hexagonal tower bedrooms and bathrooms, which emphasise the remoteness and beauty of the surroundings. There are three bedroom suites, five further bedrooms, three bathrooms and a gym that could revert to a bedroom, if need be. A self-contained guest wing provides a further three bedrooms and bathrooms.
Custom-built domestic offices reflect the family’s passion for country sports and include the gun room of your dreams and a fridge for game storage Outbuildings include a cobbled stable yard built in traditional honey-coloured Cotswold stone with stabling for five hunters, a new stone barn with garage space for several cars and a custom-built chicken run. A two-bedroom coach house and a one-bedroom gardener’s cottage are used as staff accommodation.
The formal gardens have been almost entirely created by the present owners and are divided into a number of distinct areas: a swimming-pool area with one of the best pool views in the country; a White Garden planted with weeping pear trees and myriad white plants; a log cabin below the tennis court, in which the owners often sleep on midsummer nights; and a vast walled garden laid to lawn, on which prospective purchasers arriving by helicopter are courteously invited to land.
This week also sees the launch through Savills (020-7409 8809) of imposing, Grade II-listed Newnton House at Long Newnton, near Tetbury, which comes with 13,300sq ft of living space, some 18 acres of gardens, grounds and parkland, and a price tag of £8m. The core of the house dates from about 1680, with a substantial Georgian extension and façade added in 1800. There is also evidence of an earlier building on the site-possibly a brewery linked to Malmesbury Abbey.
The elegant Georgian reception rooms overlooking the formal gardens add splendour and dignity to the older part of the house, which has smaller, cosier rooms and, with eight bedrooms and six bathrooms, there is room to spare for a large family, or indeed, a large house party in the grand manner. Newnton House is a horseman’s dream, with stabling for 12 horses, an all-weather dressage arena, a horse-walker, paddocks and a cross-country course in the park.
No one is happier to see the return of the City buyer than Atty Beor-Roberts of Knight Frank in Cirencester (01285 659771), whose season takes off in style with the launch onto the market-at a guide price of £10m -of historic Hawling Manor, on the edge of pretty Hawling village, halfway between Cheltenham and Stow-on-the-Wold.
The original manor of Hawling was held in 1066 by the Countess Goda, sister of Edward the Confessor, who managed to hang onto the estate thanks to her distant kinship with William of Normandy. The present Cotswold stone house, listed Grade II, dates from the 16th century, with additions and alterations from the 17th, 18th, mid 19th and 20th centuries. There has always been a strong link between the manor and the 12th century St Edward’s Church next door and there is well-documented evidence of the butler from Hawling Manor carrying the Bible on a red velvet cushion for Sunday services in the church in Victorian times.
For the past 20 years, Hawling Manor has been the home of Kevin Lomax, founder of the multinational software developer Misys, of which he was chairman and CEO from 1985 to 2006. Mr Lomax bought the house in 1994 and straightaway commissioned a significant restoration programme by the architect Peter Yiangou and interior designer Charles Hesp, with John Hill recruited to restore the gardens. The indoor swimming pool complex was added in 1997.
Hawling Manor stands in seven acres of beautifully manicured gardens and grounds, with a further 2.7 acres of paddocks available by separate negotiation. The main house has a grand entrance hall, four reception rooms, two kitchens and a garden room, with a music room and morning room in the Georgian wing. The master suite includes a dressing room, bathroom and sitting room, and there are six further bedrooms and bathrooms on the first floor. The second floor is arranged as the ultimate children’s playroom, with a study and a bedroom for sleepovers.
Still in the world of high-flyers, globetrotting Peter Austin and his wife, Erica, an accomplished aviatrix, are saying a reluctant goodbye to their cherished Cotswold retreat of the past 20 years. Handsome, 17th century Ready Token House near Barnsley, six miles from Cirencester, is for sale through Cotswold specialist Butler Sherborn (01285 883740) at a guide price of ‘excess £4m’.
Set in 57 acres of gardens, grounds and paddocks, with panoramic views over the surrounding countryside towards the Marlborough Downs, Ready Token House is ‘every bit as good in reality as it looks in the sales brochure,’ enthuses selling agent Sam Butler.
The main house offers a manageable 6,523sq ft of living space, including three reception rooms, a kitchen/ breakfast room, a master suite, four further bedrooms, three bathrooms and attics with potential for conversion; there is also a two-bedroom cottage. Amenities include a stable block, a studio, an indoor pool and a 360m (1,200ft) grass airstrip.
It’s easy to see why Granada TV chose tranquil Tocknells Court in the glorious Painswick Valley, eight miles from Cheltenham, as the setting for its 1997 production of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd.
Currently for sale through Savills (020-7016 3780) at a guide price of £4.5m, the Grade II*-listed former mill house, historically the highest of 16 mills in the parish of Painswick, was gentrified and extended at the turn of the 18th century and substantially restored in the early 1900s.
In 1960, it was the home of the Duchess of Rutland. Surrounded by almost 94 acres of meadows and woodland overlooking the National Trust nature reserve of Workmans Wood, Tocknells Court was described in Country Life almost a century ago (April 17, 1915) ‘with its gates and walls… and farm group’ as standing ‘largely unaltered in the unspoiled landscape of the valley’.
Exactly the same can be said of it today. All the buildings at Tocknells Court have been beautifully maintained by the current owners during their 30-year tenure, including not only the main house-which has five reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, seven bedrooms and five bathrooms- but also the entire farm complex, built of the same mellow stone as the house.
* Gloucestershire country houses for sale
* Follow Country Life magazine on Twitter
Open all references in tabs: [1 – 6]