Yours for £20m... village with 43 homes, a manor and its own pub!
IF you have ever coveted a slice of country life, this is a chance to fulfil that dream on a rather grand scale – as long as you have £20million to spare.
For the entire village of West Heslerton has been put up for sale for the eight-figure sum, with the hope that the new owner will preserve the community’s bucolic way of life. If you are the lucky buyer, the yorkshire estate boasts 43 houses, over 2,000 acres of land, a sports pavilion, playing fields and even a pub, The Dawnay Arms.
And as lord (or lady) of the manor, you would naturally have your very own country house – the 21-bedroom West Heslerton Hall.
The village, which still has resi- dents, has been left virtually untouched for 50 years by the former owner eve Dawnay.
It had been in the family for 150 years and Miss Dawnay inherited it in 1964 on the death of her father.
But when the spinster died in 2010 aged 84, there was no single heir and so the only realistic option was to sell the estate.
now her family is hoping to find a benevolent buyer who shares Miss Dawnay’s wish to conserve an almost lost way of life.
Miss Dawnay’s sister Verena elliott said of West Heslerton: ‘It would be very hard to find a village with more loyal and lovely people living in it.
‘There is a real sense of community, which is hard to find these days. There are generations of families who have lived in the estate houses.
‘In fact, there was a time when nobody ever seemed to move away.’