Western Daily Press (Saturday)
MP’s childhood home goes on sale – for £9.5m
THE historic Somerset mansion that West MP Jacob ReesMogg grew up in is on the market for nearly £10 million.
Ston Easton Park, which had been operating as a hotel, was bought by Mr Rees-Mogg’s father William in 1964.
Mr Rees-Mogg senior, the former editor of The Times, spent a decade restoring the mansion, which is based near the foot of the Mendips near Midsomer Norton.
It would have been the perfect childhood home for young Jacob, who was born in 1969.
Mr Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons and MP for North East Somerset, still lives in the area, about five miles away at West Harptree.
Ston Easton has gone on the market at £9.5 million with Strutt & Parker after the hotel went into administration earlier this year.
It is a listed Grade I Georgian country house with Grade II-listed Repton gardens and views across the neighbouring parkland.
The agent says it is ideally located within the popular county of Somerset and affording good access to the neighbouring cities of Bath, Bristol and Wells. Ston Easton Park an appealing prospect for buyers seeking a superb country home or a landmark building from which to run a commercial venture. The property boasts 20 bedrooms, 20 bathrooms and seven reception rooms. It also has a Grade II lodge cottage with three bedroom suites and further outbuildings.
Tall stone pillars with ornate pedimented iron gates open onto the long tree lined drive which leads through landscape gardens to the mansion house dating from 1769.
The first and second floors provide 19 individually designed luxury bedroom suites including one with its own roof terrace.
The lower ground floor has a central hall with access to the gardens and grounds to both east and west and provides valuable space with games room, garden room, billiard room, studies, stores and the original kitchen which is engagingly Edwardian in arrangement.
It comes with several cottages and is near to some of the West’s top private schools, including nearby Millfield. The extensive gardens and grounds wrap around the house. From the wide flagstone terrace at the rear of the house, lawns slope down to the River Norr which forms the centre piece of the Repton’s pleasure garden.