‘Welsh mansion appeal for armed forces retreat‘ [BBC News]
Raasay House: ‘Work to start on fire hit centre‘ [BBC News]
‘Overseas buyers snapping up country houses‘ [Country Life]
for sale
If I won the lottery…Sheriff Hutton Park
Launched this week in Country Life magazine is the stunning Sheriff Hutton Park, in Yorkshire. This is a quintessential English country estate: grade-I listed house with 10 bedrooms, farm, 200 acres, lake, and parkland. The house, which dates from 1730, is in need of some modernisation but retains many of the original architectural features. So if you have in excess of £5m available this could be the perfect estate for someone who wants the benefits of an important, but manageable house, combined with the opportunity to add your own choice of (architecturally sensitive) interior.
Property details: ‘Sheriff Hutton Park‘ [Savills]
Interesting houses for sale – Shurland Hall / Clifton Hall
There are always options for those who have the sensitivity to own an interesting house rather than a simply expensive one.
Shurland Hall, Eastchurch – Kent
Shurland Hall was the gatehouse to a once impressive and important house built between 1510 and 1518 by Sir Thomas Cheyne and visited by Henry VIII in 1532 but now demolished. The final residents of the house were troops billeted there during WWI who did enough damage to ensure that it was uninhabitable. In 1996, the local council spent £200,000 to install supportive scaffolding to arrest the deterioration in the structure. In 2006, a further grant of £300,000 was made to restore the facade and roof and this work has now been completed by the Spitalfields Trust. This beautiful Grade-II* building is now for sale via Jackson-Stops for offers in excess of £2,000,000 – hopefully to someone who can complete the restoration sympathetically.
Property details: ‘Shurland Hall‘ [Jackson Stops]
Clifton Hall, Nottingham
Grade-I listed Clifton Hall shot into the headlines in September 2008 when the owner walked away from the house and returned it to the mortgage company claiming that he and his family had been driven out by ghosts (‘Spooked businessman flees ‘haunted’ mansion‘). The house includes 10-bedrooms, 7 receptions, large cellars, 2.5-acres of grounds along with voices, knocks, apparitions and blood spots appearing on bed-linen. If you don’t believe in ghosts then this house could be an absolute bargain; an advert in the Home section of the Sunday Times (15 November 2009) lists the price as £2.5m but on the agents website it’s down to £1.5m. So pack your holy water and book a viewing.
Property details: ‘Clifton Hall‘ [FHP Living] (interesting that none of the big agencies have taken this instruction…)
Country house content sales continue
Following on from the recent auction of contents from Powerham Castle in Devon to pay for much needed repairs and maintenance, Lord Gerald Fitzalan Howard, second son of the Duke of Norfolk, is doing the same. Lord Gerald’s home, the Grade-I listed Carlton Towers in Yorkshire, requires approximately £1m spent on essential repairs. Carlton Towers is a fine example of type of large Victorian Gothic houses which were particularly popular in the North.
With the help of the family archivist and architectural writer John Martin Robinson the family have selected 120 lots including furniture, ceramics, silver – including a set of four silver wine coolers by Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, dated 1809 and 1811, and Old Master paintings – including two views of Venice by Canelletto.
The sale is on 4 November at Sothebys, New Bond Street, London.
Catalogue: ‘Carlton Towers‘ [Sothebys]
For sale: country house with good local shopping
To call Stone Castle a country house is pushing it really. The house, built on the site of the castle where William the Conquerer signed a peace treaty with the men of Kent in 1067, is now besieged by property development which has marched to within 70ft of the front door. Current owners, Land Securities, have used the house as a venue for conferences and weddings.
The house is perched on an outcrop high above the old quarry which now houses the vast Bluewater shopping centre. The house has a tower dating from the 14th-century but the majority of the house is late Georgian, built in 1825. The house now only has 2.5-acres of gardens but luckily the developments are to the rear of the property leaving lofty views from the lawns.
The house is being auctioned on 5 November with a guide price of £750,000 – but expect to spend even more to make it a home.
Full story: ‘STONE: Hidden castle from medieval era up for auction‘ [News Shopper]
The Country Seat 