History set in stone
Four extraordinary country houses new to the market include an original ‘West Country Ziggurat’ and a manor once part of the Highgrove estate
THE houses and estates that are the real stars of COUNTRY LIFE provide a compelling and enigmatic insight into the lives of those who built, owned, lived in and often fought over them. In this week’s Platinum Jubilee issue, the enduring fascination of England’s historic houses is reflected in the launch onto the market of four timeless, but quite different country houses that have featured within its pages.
Sam Trounson of Strutt & Parker in Cirencester (01285 653101) quotes a guide price of £3.75 million for Grade I-listed, Elizabethan Doughton Manor, near Tetbury, Gloucestershire, a wonderfully symmetrical, but little-altered Cotswold-stone manor house, which stands opposite The Prince of Wales’s Highgrove estate, of which it was once a part. Doughton Manor, with its traditional coach house, Grade Ii-listed stone barn and nearly five acres of walled gardens and paddocks, stands at the heart of the Cotswold AONB, a mile west of Tetbury, 11 miles from Cirencester and nine miles from Kemble station.
Although its Historic England listing maintains that Doughton Manor was built for Richard Talboys between 1628 and 1641, research conducted by the present owners, backed up by documents held in Tetbury church, suggests that the house was, in fact, built in the 1590s, and acquired in 1623 by Talboys, who then bought the Manor and Lordship of Doughton in 1628 and ‘enlarged the existing manor house’.
Meanwhile, Talboys continued to live in Tetbury and probably only moved to Doughton Manor with his fourth wife, the heiress Elizabeth Abarrow, when the refurbishment was completed in 1641. Doughton Manor remained in the Talboys family until 1819, when Thomas Talboys sold it to John Paul, the owner of the neighbouring Highgrove estate. John’s son, Walter, sold Doughton in 1860, after which it was sold twice more before being acquired by A. C. Mitchell in 1894.
Mitchell’s son, Col F. A. Mitchell, restored Doughton Manor in 1933 and was later applauded in a COUNTRY LIFE article by Christopher Hussey (November 26, 1943). In the early 1960s, the Mitchell family sold the manor house with 120 acres to Maj R. W. Ingall who farmed it, together with a large acreage on lease, until the 1970s. Clearly, one reason why Doughton Manor has remained so little changed and for so long, is that, over the years, the house was largely occupied by working farmers, with the estate owners living elsewhere.
The present owners, who bought the manor in July 1985, have preserved the architectural integrity of the house, which offers 6,630sq ft of living space on three floors, including three main reception rooms, a vast kitchen/breakfast room, five first-floor bedrooms and four bathrooms, with further attic rooms on the floor above. They have also painstakingly restored the three walled gardens, orchard, borders, beds and walkways that provide an agreeable backdrop to this remarkable house.
The rustic charm of Doughton Manor contrasts sharply with the Georgian elegance of Grade Ii*-listed Gatcombe House at Gatcombe, one of three grand 18th-century properties on the Isle of Wight. George Nares of Savills (020–7016 3822) quotes a guide price of £5.75m for the imposing Georgian house, set in 48 acres of formal gardens and parkland on the sheltered western slope of a picturesque wooded valley, three miles inland from Newport and nine miles from Cowes.
According to its Historic England listing, Gatcombe House was built in 1751 by Sir Edward Worsley, scion of a younger branch of the Worsley family, whose principal island seat was at Appuldurcombe. The impressive north and east façades were built of Isle of Wight tooled ashlar, whereas the south side was rendered and the west elevation built of brick. An amusing footnote to the listing suggests that ‘it is apparent from the use of ashlar on the north and east fronts only (those seen from the original carriage drive) that the younger branch of the Worsley family found it difficult to keep up appearances on their income’.
The gardens were said to contain every known English native species of tree
Nevertheless, Gatcombe continued in Worsley family ownership until the end of the 18th century. The estate was later owned by Alexander Baring, 1st Lord Ashburton, then by the wealthy Nottinghamshire coalmine owner Sir Charles Seely and, later, by another leading Isle of Wight family, the Hobarts. More recently, the nine-bedroom main house was extensively modernised and refurbished by the previous owner and the current owners, who bought the property some 10 years ago, have made further improvements, including the restoration and conversion of the Grade Ii-listed Old Stable Block.
Keeping up appearances was never an issue for Nathaniel, 1st Lord Rothschild, who, in 1905, built Swinton Grange, near Malton, North Yorkshire on the family’s 20,000-acre estate as a wedding present for his daughter, Evelina, who married Clive Behrens in 1899 before moving to the
Grange, where the couple’s three children were raised. According to the Rothschild family archive, Evelina ‘was not a flamboyant woman; she dressed in a plain style and was keen to instil in her children a sense of reserve and restraint’.
There’s nothing flamboyant about the handsome Edwardian house built by Lord Rothschild for her, with gardens that were said to contain every known English native species of tree. Swinton Grange remained in the family’s ownership until 1978 when the house, which is unlisted, was bought as a corporate headquarters. It continued in institutional ownership until the present owner bought it eight years ago, since when no expense has been spared in restoring and updating the secluded 15,000sq ft house set in almost 11 acres of impeccably maintained gardens and grounds.
Currently for sale through York-based agents Blenkin & Co (01904 671672) at a guide
price of £6m, Swinton Grange stands in a glorious rural setting on the eastern edge of the Howardian Hills, yet only two miles from the racing town of Malton and 19 miles from York. Truly a safe haven in these troubled times, it offers light and airy accommodation on three floors, including four reception rooms, seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms, with many more rooms on the second floor.
Finally, a 21st-century architectural masterpiece: The Pavilion, Esmond and Susie Bulmer’s new house in the grounds of Redlynch Park, near Bruton, Somerset, was memorably described as ‘a West Country Ziggurat’ by Marcus Binney in COUNTRY LIFE (May 28, 2014) following its completion. Currently for sale through Savills (020–7016 3822) and Knight Frank (020–7861 1080) at a guide price of £6.5m, The Pavilion was designed by the architect William Bertram, best known for his work for The Prince of Wales and who worked closely with the owners at every stage of its construction.
The house stands on a steeply rising hillside above the site of one of England’s lost country houses, Redlynch Park, which was dramatically burnt down by Suffragettes in 1914. Set in two acres of gardens on three levels, it appears to cascade down the hillside in a series of terraces, each one overlooking the gardens and smaller than the one below, a design that makes the most of the surrounding panoramic views.
The ground floor, which incorporates an earlier 1990s house built in what Mr Bertram wickedly describes as ‘the neo-georgian telephone-exchange idiom’, has been transformed into the main living area, comprising a dramatic entrance hall, three reception rooms, a study, kitchen breakfast room and butler’s pantry. The lower ground floor houses the library, two bedroom suites, three further bedrooms and bathrooms, integrated double garage, plant room and store rooms.
The base of the ‘ziggurat’ is the garden floor, which boasts a spectacular indoor swimming pool opening onto the gardens, together with changing rooms, therapy room and bar. The nearby former engine house to Redlynch Park has been converted to a cinema, store rooms and boiler room, behind which a generator is concealed. A secluded country house in miniature, for Crispin Holborow of Savills, ‘The Pavilion is the ideal Londoner’s weekend retreat—easily managed with little or no need for staff, and perfectly protected by the surrounding Redlynch Park estate’.