One green shoot doesn’t make a recovery, but it’s good to hear that The Coach House (Fig 1) at Fullerton, near Stockbridge, has gone under offer within three weeks of its launch through Knight Frank and Jackson-Stops Staff, and reputedly for close to its £2.95 million guide price. Interestingly, of the various parties competing for the house, several had City connections, although the successful bidder was locally based, underlining the fact that the core country market in Hampshire is still family-driven.
A former Victorian coach house on the Fullerton Manor estate, The Coach House—originally converted in 1967 and refurbished in exquisite ‘French château’ style by the vendor —is perfectly located two miles from Farleigh prep school and four miles from Andover, with London-Waterloo a 69-minute train ride away.
Set in two acres of landscaped, partly walled gardens overlooking the rolling north Hampshire countryside, the elegant, 6,000sq ft house has everything a family could wish for: four good reception rooms, five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a swimming pool, a tennis court and a handy one-bedroom cottage.
With less than a month to go before the great ‘mansion tax’ debate is resolved one way or another, owners of Hampshire houses valued at more than £2m have been keeping their powder dry. There is a significant under-supply of houses in the £2m to £3m price bracket and demand is greatest for solid family houses priced between £800,000 and £1.2m —the optimum level in terms of the new Stamp Duty thresholds.
Fig 2: Originally built as three houses now joined together, Lower Church Cottage at Cliddesden also offers a separate two- bedroom cottage. £1.25m.
Philip Blanchard of Jackson-Stops Staff in Winchester (01962 844299), joint agent in the sale of The Coach House, has launched the highly com- mutable Lower Church Cottage (Fig 2) at Cliddesden, a thriving conservation village three miles south of Basingstoke at the northern end of the picturesque Candover Valley, on the market at a guide price of £1.25m.
Originally built as three cottages in the mid 1800s and now arranged as a charming, five-bedroom main house—with a separate two-bedroom cottage ‘in need of some updating’— Lower Church Cottage, which is unlisted, stands in almost half an acre of pretty gardens between the village duck pond and St Leonard’s church.
Fig 3: Georgian Blae‘Grove House is part of the Up Nately village conservation area. £3m.
The launch onto the market of Grade II-listed, Georgian Blae Grove House (Fig 3) at Up Nately, four miles east of Basingstoke, at a guide price of £3m through Knight Frank (01256 350600) and Savills (01635 277700), brings a whiff of life in the fast lane to a sleepy corner of rural Hampshire.
For the past 27 years, the charming, 18th-century former farmhouse has been the home of Adrian Hamilton, son of former Grand Prix racing driver and 1953 Le Mans 24-Hour winner Duncan Hamilton, who has carried on the classic-racing-car business established by his father in 1948, from a series of converted out- buildings in the grounds.
A substantial red-brick building with a symmetrical façade, Blae Grove House (formerly known as Bleakstone Farmhouse) is a key element of the Up Nately conservation area, designated in 1981, and reflects the village’s strong farming traditions. The house, which stands in almost six acres of beautifully maintained gardens, grounds and paddocks, has four reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a two-bedroom converted coach house.
Fig 4: Woodway House at Kimpton. £3.25m–£3.5m.
With few comparable transactions to work with, it’s difficult for agents to value precisely country houses outside the inner-London commuter belt with any degree of accuracy. Hence the fairly elastic guide price of £3.25m–£3.5m quoted by Savills (020–7016 3780) for handsome Woodway House (Fig 4) at Kimpton, six miles north-west of Andover. ‘That’s not far from Ibthorpe Manor Farm, a Grade II*-listed Queen Anne house, which sold last year off a guide price of £3.75m,’ adds Phillippa Dalby-Welsh of Savills, helpfully.
* Country houses for sale in Hampshire
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