Happy families
Home is where the heart is at three family-sized properties that have not been seen on the market for decades
THERE’S something special about a cherished family home that hasn’t been seen on the market for many years—and buyers, who currently outnumber sellers by an ever-increasing margin, will no doubt be queueing up to view three impeccably located new entrants to the country property market. Today’s COUNTRY LIFE sees the launch onto the market of secluded Grade Ii-listed Hadham Grange, near the sought-after village of Much Hadham, half-way between the historic towns of Ware and Bishop’s Stortford in rural east Hertfordshire.
Following the death of its owner, whose home it was for almost 50 years, Hadham Grange is now for sale through Knight Frank (01279 213340) at a guide price of £3.95 million.
The ancient village of Much Hadham lies in a sheltered valley bounded to one side by the fledgling River Ash, a tributary of the Stort, and Hadham Grange occupies a commanding position on the ridge of a wooded escarpment to the east of the stream. According to its listing, the imposing redbrick house dates from the late 16th or early 17th century and was ‘greatly enlarged’ in
the early 20th century. It stands at the heart of a picturesque complex of listed barns, stabling and outbuildings on the edge of the village, surrounded by 16½ acres of beautifully maintained gardens, orchard, kitchen garden, paddocks and woodland.
Approached along its own private driveway that meanders through the grounds —currently a mass of daffodils in full bloom—the main house is built on two storeys with many projecting bay windows, the latter painted an unmissable purple that may not be to everyone’s taste.
The early-20th-century part of the house, accessed via the central hallway, contains the principal reception rooms, all of which are impressive spaces with high ceilings. They include the panelled morning room, dining room and drawing room, the last two of which face south over formal gardens. The original 17th-century part has some fine timbered rooms with open fireplaces.
A great deal of work was carried out by the owner in the 2000s, when the kitchen and bathrooms were modernised. Today, Hadham Grange offers 5,887sq ft of beautifully maintained living space, including four reception rooms, a conservatory, gymnasium, charming kitchen/breakfast room and four palatial bedroom suites, plus a fifth bedroom and family bathroom. It comes with a one-bedroom annexe, two period thatched barns (one recently re-thatched), a tennis court, heated greenhouse, extensive garaging and stabling. Also included is a path that leads to the village via a footbridge over the River Ash.
Down in West Sussex, Toby Whittome of Lindfield-based Jackson-stops (01444 484400) is handling the sale of John and Mandy Husband’s delightful Tudor Cottage near the village of Hurstpierpoint, on the edge of the South Downs National Park. The house, which has been the Husband family’s much-loved home for the past 43 years, sits at the end of a quiet private road, surrounded by farmland to the north and a golf course to the east.
Mr Whittome quotes a guide price of £2.25m for the enchanting, 4,900sq ft house, which has ‘grow’d like Topsy’ over the years, having evolved, not from a Tudor building, but from an older 15th-century hall house, altered and extended in the 18th and late 19th centuries, when it was the mews house to the former Clayton Wickham House (later Beaumont School), which has since been demolished.
The various stages of development can be clearly identified in the present building, from the original two-storey, red-brick hall house with its mathematical tiled main façade, adjoining coach house and converted stables to one side and, on the opposite side, the modern kitchen wing with its family room and study behind. Interestingly, the house is unlisted, which may facilitate any alterations to its layout, such as the conversion of the former coach house to further accommodation.
There was much to do at Tudor Cottage when Mr and Mrs Husband bought the property in 1978, since when they have worked their way steadily through the house, which now offers 4,900sq ft of light, bright
A Canadian soldier painted a maple leaf with the word “home” underneath
accommodation on various levels, including four main reception rooms, a spacious principal bedroom suite, three/four bedrooms, two shower rooms and a self-contained, two-bedroom ground-floor flat. Finally, Mr Husband adds: ‘In addition to the wealth of historic features, there’s also a poignant bit of graffiti from more recent times on the back of a landing door, where a homesick Canadian soldier, who was billeted here during the Second World War, painted a maple leaf with the word “Home” underneath. We promised the previous owners never to paint over it—and we never have.’
Over in the West Country, Falmouthbased Jonathan Cunliffe (01326 617447) is handling the sale of that rarest of beasts, a waterside house in a prime location on the Helford River, one of Cornwall’s most beautiful and unspoilt rivers, historically renowned as a haven for pirates and the inspiration for Daphne du Maurier’s novel Frenchman’s Creek. Today, the Helford River still offers wonderful boating and a second natural harbour from which to explore the coast, much of it an AONB owned and protected by the National Trust.
For sale for the first time since 1975 at a guide price of £1.35m, Quay House at Helford was the treasured home of its late owners for more than 40 years. Set within a large private garden with views across to the sailing club and down the Helford estuary, the house, which dates from the early 1970s, shares a rare and wonderful position with a handful of other houses on an exclusive private peninsula that juts out from Helford village, effectively separating Helford Village Creek from the Trust-owned Penarvon Cove. Helford’s famed Shipwrights Arms is an easy stroll from the shoreline below Quay House.
As Mr Cunliffe points out, ‘the house, which currently offers a kitchen and openplan living/dining room, four/five double bedrooms, three shower rooms and an attached garage/workshop, is dated by current standards, but it has been lovingly maintained and, being unlisted, offers huge scope for remodelling, enlargement or, indeed, a complete rebuild, subject to the necessary consents. Unusually for a house in Helford village, Quay House is set in generous gardens of about one-third of an acre, with a variety of mature trees and shrubs providing a high level of privacy and seclusion’.
The Helford River is historically renowned as a haven for pirates and the inspiration for du Maurier’s Frenchman’s Creek