grade-i

If I won the lottery…Sheriff Hutton Park

Matthew Beckett - The Country Seat1 Comment
Sheriff Hutton Park (Image: Savills)

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]

Minor fire at Chastleton House, Oxfordshire

Matthew Beckett - The Country SeatLeave a comment

Visitors had to be evacuated from the beautiful Grade-I listed, Jacobean, Chastleton House on Saturday 11 July when a small fire broke out in an upstairs bedroom.  Luckily, damage was minor and the house was largely unharmed, but yet another reminder that fire is always an ever present danger.

Full story: ‘Firefighters tackle stately home blaze‘ [Oxford Mail]

Simon Halabi and Mentmore Towers

Matthew Beckett - The Country Seat10 Comments

The Times (‘Halabi may have to sell-up to pay loan‘ – 16 July 2009) is reporting that Simon Halabi, the multi-millionare businessman, may have to sell part of his London property portfolio to satisfy bond holders after the value of the properties dropped by nearly half, breaching the loan-to-value ratio of the bond secured against it.  In 1997, Halabi bought the Grade-I listed Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, formerly one of the Rothschild banking family’s most famous and impressive houses,  with the intention of converting it into a luxury hotel.  It’s not known how far work on that project has progressed but the grand chateau-style house, which also starred in the film ‘Batman Begins’ as Bruce Wayne’s house, is just too important to be forgotten so I hope that his other issues don’t impact on the work being undertaken as part of that project.