Dove Rock has as fine a coastal location as you could imagine, and architecture which makes the most of it in every conceivable way.

You won’t find any greater lovers of traditional country house architecture than us at Country Life. Sometimes, though, a house comes along with a far more modern style which fills us with joy about the possibilities opened up by modern techniques.

It’s one such house that we look at here: Dove Rock, in a Cornish village called Plaidy, near East Looe. This 3,905sq ft house, which has just come to the market with Jackson-Stops at an asking price of £2.5 million, has as fine a coastal location as you could imagine – and architecture which makes the most of it in every conceivable way.

The entire house is arranged in order that almost every single room enjoys the sweeping views across the English Channel from floor-to-ceiling windows that span the entire length of the property.

The centrepiece of the house is the open plan kitchen dining room, with a huge kitchen island and dining table dominating the space. Off to one side is a living room that’s part sitting room, part games room and part bar; to the other side is a library, complete with log burner for giving some warmth and cosiness in the colder, wetter months.

The whole place is currently decorated in a style with period touches which give it the feel of an old James Bond movie. You’d half expect to find Roger Moore sitting in the library, with a vodka martini in one hand and a Walther PPK in the other.

That’s as old school as things get, however; the list of features include modern touches such as under floor heating and wireless Sonos sound system throughout.

The five bedrooms are split between first floor and lower ground floor, all of them en-suite (the bathrooms get views as well), and two of them on the lower floor sharing access to a separate sun room.

The house has just over an acre and a half of landscaped gardens, though as you’ll see from the pictures on this page this isn’t a house for somebody who loves keeping a nice, big lawn.

Instead, the outside playing area is on the beach, accessed directly via a set of steps, and a large chunk of which is actually owned by Dove Rock; all in all the sale includes a total of 21 acres of magnificent Cornish coast.

It would be a great holiday let, of course, but would also make a wonderful family home – there’s a primary school within walking distance, for starters. It’d be lovely to think of a some lucky children enjoying the privilege of growing up in such a beautiful spot.

Dove Rock is on the market with Jackson-Stops at an asking price of £2.5 million – see more details and pictures.

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A mansion in Dorset on the banks of the River Stour looks every inch the tranquil country pile, but Manston House has a fascinating history forged in fire. Penny Churchill explains.

The graceful appearance of Manston House belies the role that fire has played in the part of an otherwise tranquil story. For this house on the banks of the River Stour near Sturminster Newton in north Dorset – currently for sale through Savills at a guide price of £6.5m – would have a very different look and feel today were it not for a devastating blaze.

This grand and magnificent Grade II listed house is arranged around a fine reception hall that is flooded with light from a galleried landing. There is also an elegant drawing room, large dining room, a library and a family room, along with a home office. On the first and second floors there are nine bedrooms and a roof terrace. But the house as it stands today is a long way removed from the original.

The original late-17th-century house was the seat, in the early 1850s, of Thomas Hanham, younger son of Sir James Hanham of Deans Court, Wimborne, when a disastrous fire destroyed most of the building and its contents. The young Thomas immediately replaced the house with a much grander building, incorporating the old rear wing, which had survived the fire.

Fire would come to play another role in the history of the house. Hanham was later a Justice of the Peace, a Deputy-Lieutenant of Dorset and a high-ranking Freemason, who promised his wife, Edith, that he would have her cremated should she predecease him, which she did, in 1876.

Cremation was illegal at the time and her body was installed in a mausoleum as he negotiated with the authorities. Eventually, in October 1882, he was legally permitted to consign her body to the flames in a small crematorium he also built in the grounds: it was Britain’s first legal cremation.

Manston House has always been the principal house of the village, even more so following a major restoration that was carried out in 2013–14 by specialist country-house builder R. Moulding & Co of Salisbury, in close cooperation with the current owners. Tim Moulding, the eighth generation of his family to head up the firm, still recalls every step of the project, which took 18 months to complete.

The restoration work included the construction of a large, three-storey extension on the south side; the installation of a new tiled roof and custom-built windows and doors; the renewal of all mechanical, electrical and plumbing services, with new floor finishes throughout; the creation of a new master suite and new en-suite bathrooms to all bedrooms; and a new kitchen and pantry, as well as extensive landscaping and fencing.

The result is an almost entirely new country house within a classic Georgian framework, with some 8,700sq ft of accommodation on three floors, including four main reception rooms, eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms.

‘Perhaps best of all, given the problems that inevitably surface in the course of a historic-building renovation, is that the owner and I are still friends,’ laughs Mr Moulding.

Manston House is for sale via Savills – see more details and pictures.

One of the oldest, largest and most beautiful country houses in England has come up for sale – and while the guide price is just the start of what must be spent, Parnham House could once again be one of the finest homes in Britain.

One of the oldest country houses in Dorset – and, for that matter, England – has come up for sale. The glorious, Grade I-listed Parnham House near Beaminster is for sale via Knight Frank at a guide price of £3 million.

It’s an incredibly beautiful Elizabethan country house laid out in an E shape over some 38,000sq ft (for the sake of comparison that’s not far off the White House, at 55,000sq ft). It’s located just seven miles inland from the World Heritage Jurassic Coast, is approached via a dramatic sweeping driveway, has a long and distinguished history and comes with 132 acres of parkland.

There is one small catch, however: the whole place has been gutted by fire, and is in danger of falling down.

Tragically, the interior of this magnificent manor house was gutted by a catastrophic blaze that ripped through the building in April last year, leaving the external walls standing but unstable and the entire house in need of urgent restoration.

On the plus side, there is somewhere for the new owner to live while the work is done: the property includes a charming, three-bedroom Dower House.

The Dower House at Parnham House

You can even bring the staff and the horses, since there’s also a two-bedroom stable cottage, two flats, stabling and an outdoor manège.

Another plus for a prospective buyer is that Historic England sound pleasantly flexible about the manner in which any work is undertaken. The organisation, which rates Parnham House as being ‘of outstanding architectural and historical importance’, comments: ‘The damage to Parnham House’s interior has been very severe, but the important elements to conserve in restoration are the layout of the principal rooms, any surviving historic features, the building’s picturesque setting and its architectural significance.

‘We are happy to enter into constructive discussions with any future owner about interior design preferences which fully reflect the building’s importance and have a clear design rationale.’

From a restorer’s point of view, such words should reassure the various parties from around the world, and within Dorset itself, who have already expressed an interest in what would undoubtedly be a renovation of epic proportions.

That common sense approach is entirely justified by the house’s past. Despite the ageless beauty of its Elizabethan exterior, change is nothing new to Parnham, which has seen a major restructuring of its fabric and interior at least half a dozen times in the course of its long and dramatic history.

The principal front was built of stone from the Beaminster quarry by Wessex landowner Robert Strode in about 1559. The Strodes owned the estate from the mid 1400s to the mid 1700s and, in about 1730, George Strode (the last of his line) modernised the house and demolished the Elizabethan forecourt and gatehouse to create a landscaped setting.

On his death in 1753, his heiress daughter married William Oglander of Nunwell in the Isle of Wight, where she went to live, thereby consigning the Parnham estate to 50 years of neglect.

In the early 19th century, their son, Sir William Oglander, entranced by Parnham’s beauty, decided to make it his family seat and commissioned John Nash to remodel the house. The interior was arranged in Regency Gothic style, although little of Nash’s interior survived when the Oglander male line died out in 1896 and Parnham was bought by Vincent Robinson, an eccentric antiquary, who restored the house to its pre-Nash Tudor glory, filling it with his vast collection of Renaissance furniture.

In 1911, a Belgian entrepreneur, Dr Hans Sauer, bought the estate and embarked on a full-scale restoration of Parnham House, stripping out the 19th-century work and selling off Robinson’s collection to fund extensive improvements to the house and gardens.

In the 1920s it became a fashionable country club; in the 1930s, a venue for extravagant country-house weekends; and, after the Second World War, a home for pleasantly dotty, rich old ladies, until new safety regulations forced its closure in 1973.

In 1976, Parnham entered an age of enlightenment, when furniture designer John Makepeace established his School for Craftsmanship in Wood there, the legacy of which is chronicled in his recent book, Beyond Parnham (www.beyondparnham.com ). Over their 25-year tenure, he and his wife painstakingly renovated the house, re-creating the formal gardens and watercourses long since lost in the undergrowth.

In 2001, following Mr Makepeace’s decision to retire from teaching, Parnham was bought by its late owner, an Austrian banker who reconstituted the estate, restored the deer park and refurbished the house to a standard that, according to John Martin Robinson writing in Country Life in 2005, ‘set the benchmark for the English country house in the 21st century.’

Ah, but at what price? That is the burning question that will exercise the minds of conservationists, designers, restorers and lovers of historic country houses alike, before Parnham again rises from the ashes of disaster – as it surely will.

Could Mr Makepeace’s suggestion that the next Parnham might be ‘a first-rate contemporary house’ provide a possible answer? Only time will tell.

Parnham House is for sale via Knight Frank at a guide price of £3 million – see more details and pictures.

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Devon – £7,000,000

Spectacular edge of village house in Ottery St Mary.

For sale with Knight Frank. See more pictures and details about this property.

Jersey – £3,750,000

The ultimate gateway into Jersey’s unique lifestyle without the usual housing process.

For sale with Savills. See more pictures and details about this property.

Jersey – Price on Application

A rare opportunity to purchase an iconic property in St Brelade with the best views out west.

For sale with Savills. See more pictures and details about this property.

Surrey – £17,950,000

An iconic masterpiece in St George’s Hill.

For sale with Knight Frank. See more pictures and details about this property.

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Delta Cottage, high on the banks of Restronguet Creek, was the perfect setting for a sailing superstar to learn his craft. The beautiful family home now looks for a new owner to enjoy its idyllic location and incredible views.

It’s nearly impossible to call a house in such a beautiful location ‘unassuming’, but somehow the quaint former home of Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie manages to be just that. Sitting on the southern banks of Restronguet Creek, this waterside cottage is the perfect home for a water lover, overlooking Restronguet Point and the Carrick Roads beyond.

Unsurprisingly due to its excellent location it has primarily been rented as a holiday home, however Delta Cottage, on the market with Jackson Stop at a guide price of £850,000, has the potential to once more become the delightful family home Ben Ainslie enjoyed so much in his youth.

Ainslie first learnt to sail at eight years old on Restronguet Creek while he attended the nearby Truro School. He first competed domestically at age ten and by twelve he was competing internationally at the 1989 Optimist world championships in Japan, placing 73rd in the world.

Seven years of improvement saw Ainslie win a silver medal in the Atlanta Olympics and a gold four years later in the Summer Olympics. Another four years saw him move up a weight class and win gold in the next three Olympics. The first of 8,000 torch carriers, Ainslie started the 70-day tour of England at Land’s End and carried the flag for Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony. His gold medal winning dinghies are currently on display at the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall, just a boat ride from his old childhood home.

Delta Cottage bears many signs of being a maritime residence; the kitchen is panelled in solid oak units which match the wooded ceiling of the dining room, giving one the impression of being inside a very well lit, spacious ship’s cabin. The natural wood continues up the stairs to the beamed living room and up to the soft furnishings of all three bedrooms, most of which are included in the sale.

The outside of the property reflects the inside theme; a sun terrace provides perfect views over the Creek and the mature garden leads down to a running mooring. The patio speaks of hopeful breakfasts outside in the summer months, concealed by the rich greenery that surrounds the property on all sides.

A short drive from Falmouth and Truro, Delta Cottage is remarkably well connected for its quiet location. Despite this, the new owners need not look further than their own back garden for entertainments; a variety of coastal walks along the creek extend from the long frontage of the property, reaching towards Mylor Bridge and beyond.

Delta Cottage is on the market with Jackson-Stops at a guide price of £850,000. Click here for more information and pictures.

With a walled garden, an arboretum, a water garden and a vegetable garden, its no surprise that White House and its environs provided inspiration for Spring's creative genius.

Falmouth-based estate agent Jonathan Cunliffe is handling the sale – at a guide price of £1.595 million – of one of Falmouth’s least-known but most impressive houses.

Elegant, Georgian White House on Fenwick Road was home to the Welsh author and journalist Howard Spring from Midsummer Day 1947 until his death in 1965. Spring used Falmouth and its environs as the setting for several of his books, including Fame is the Spur, Hard Facts and The Houses in Between.

He and his wife, Marion, were passionate gardeners and, in her book Howard, she refers to ‘our rare and lovely trees – mimosa, tulip tree, embothriums, metasequoia’, many of which still grace White House’s wonderful walled garden, along with the arboretum, water garden and vegetable garden, which gave them ‘never-ending and supremely interesting work’.

White House, which, oddly enough, is unlisted – ‘probably because the listing inspector, in true Cornish fashion, couldn’t see the house behind its high garden wall and was disinclined to explore further’, suggests Mr Cunliffe – was built in 1780 for a spinster sister of the influential Fox family of Glendurgan Garden fame (now owned by the National Trust).

Bought in 2002 by businessman Kim Conchie and his wife, Sarah, who wished to bring up their young family – then aged nine, six and three – in his native Cornwall, White House has been a wonderful family experience and it will be ‘a real wrench’ to leave, Mr Conchie admits.

In a thriving historic town where terraced houses are the norm, White House’s especially private location a mere 400 yards from the beach, its generous six/seven bedroom accommodation and delightful walled gardens – 1.25 acres in all – make it a proposition that any serious buyer with the sea in his blood will find awfully hard to resist.

White House is on sale with Jonathan Cunliffe at a guide price of £1.595 million, click here for more information and pictures.

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This fine country rectory just outside Bath has had half a million pounds trimmed from its asking price – a realistic sign of the times, as Penny Churchill reports.

Arguably Bath’s most famous resident, Jane Austen lived in the city from the time of her father’s retirement until shortly after his death, a period of five years from 1801 to 1806. During her stay, she wrote the novel Persuasion and, later, Sense and Sensibility – concepts that appear to resonate perfectly with the city’s estate agents in today’s unpredictable property market.

‘At a time when sensible pricing has never been so important, some vendors still take a lot of persuading to lower their sights,’ says Charlie Taylor of Knight Frank. That message is hitting home with some, however: take the case of Grade II-listed The Old Rectory at Claverton, a historic manorial settlement on the southern side of Bath which has seen a substantial reduction in asking price to reflect the conditions.

Located in undulating countryside between Claverton Manor and Warleigh Manor, the valley was the subject of landscaping and grand planning during the 17th and 18th centuries, a legacy still evident today.

First launched on the market in May at a guide price of £2.95 million, the substantial, late-17th-century former rectory, rebuilt and extended in 1852, is now on through Knight Frank and Savills at a guide price of £2.5 million.

The recently refurbished main house provides more than 6,800sq ft of living space on three floors, including a drawing room, dining room and kitchen, all with fine views over the garden to the Limpley Stoke valley.

The first floor houses a luxurious master suite, a study, four further bedrooms and a family bathroom, with two further bedrooms on the floor above.

Outside, a bank of mature woodland ensures the privacy and seclusion of the lovely rear garden, which has been thoughtfully laid out and beautifully maintained.

In 1750, the writer, poet and Anglican minister Richard Graves – best known in scholarly circles for his novel The Spiritual Quixote, a satire of John Wesley and Methodism – was installed as rector of Claverton and, from then until his death in 1804, he rarely left the living for long.

In those days, the rectory, which stood on the same site as the present one, was, according to Graves’s biographer Francis Kilvert, ‘of a far humbler character, a long low building, beneath the level of the road, possessing nevertheless an air of comfort and respectability’.

Today’s handsome former rectory comprises three main parts: the original 17th-century house to the south, the imposing 19th-century part, with its distinctive gables, in the centre and the attached two-bedroom Rectory Cottage to the north.

The Old Rectory at Claverton is for sale through Knight Frank and Savills at a guide price of £2.5 million – see more details and pictures.

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Just a few minutes from Bath yet with its toes also in the Cotswolds, this Grade II*-listed home is the archetype of the liveable country house.

In a gloriously unspoilt and peaceful setting four miles north-east of Bath overlooking picturesque St Catherine’s Valley lies St Catherine’s End House, a beautiful country home that sits just within the Cotswolds AONB.

This imposing 17th-century building – for sale via Knight Frank at £2.325 million –  is wonderfully private, approached from a country lane through high wooden gates that open onto a spacious gravel drive and extensive parking.

Terraced lawns sweep away to the east, where mature hedgerows protect the boundary without impinging on the splendid panoramic views across the valley.

Inside, the house boasts an array of fine, original architectural detail. There are steep gables and mullioned windows, beamed ceilings and stone fireplaces, and perhaps best of all an original 17th-century staircase.

The main house currently offers 3,831sq ft of accommodation, including a drawing room, library, family room, kitchen/breakfast room and four bedroom suites.

The sale also includes the Garden House – a converted former coach house – that offers a further 1,517sq ft of living space, including a kitchen/living room and two bedroom suites.

The owners have recently obtained planning consent to significantly extend the main house by linking it on one side with the separate home office to create a large kitchen/dining room and adding a new drawing room and loggia on the opposite side.

The proposed alterations, if implemented in their entirety, would increase the area of the main house to a total of 5,413sq ft and substantially enhance its overall appeal. Not that it needs much help in that regard, of course…

St Catherine’s End House is for sale via Knight Frank at £2.325 million – see more details and pictures.

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The church owned this property in the Somerset village of Northend for hundreds of years; now, after a huge refurbishment project, it's on the lookout for a new owner.

At a guide price of £1.95m through Knight Frank, Grade II-listed The Old Vicarage in the charming village of Northend, three miles from Bath, is for sale for the first time in more than 250 years, having been in Church ownership before being taken on by its present owners.

During their tenure, they’ve completely renovated the house, transforming the interior into a stylish, contemporary family home whose clean, modern interior seems to work well with the ancient space inside, despite coming as something of a surprise after first seeing this traditional Somerset building.

The drawing room, dining room, and a state-of-the-art Mowlem & Co kitchen wouldn’t look out of place in a swish city penthouse, for example.

There’s also a strikingly modern-looking sitting room/media room and a games room.

There are six bedrooms and four bathrooms across the first and second floors, and a cellar (including wine room) below the ground floor – the house has some 5,100sq ft in all.

Modern art decks many of the walls and the fittings also keep the modern theme – yet many period touches such as fireplaces, beams and the Georgian windows have been respected and incorporated.

Outside there is roughly half an acre of gardens, beautifully landscaped, with a lawn and shrubs and all surrounded by mature trees.

There is also an orchard with various varieties of apple trees, raised beds for vegetables and a garage that’s currently used for housing garden machinery and ancillary equipment.

The Old Vicarage is for sale via Knight Frank at £1.95 million – see more details and pictures.

No voice cried out more loudly than that of the late Major Anthony Crombie when Bath's historic city centre was threatened by the wrecking ball. Maj Crombie's own home has now come to the market, a place that holds true to the ideals he held dear.

‘When I first started selling houses in Bath in the 1990s, a Georgian house in need of renovation would come along every six weeks. Now, it’s more like one a year,’ says Andrew Cronan of Strutt & Parker, for whom Christmas has come early in the shape of 7, Sion Hill Place, one of a terrace of elegant Grade I-listed Georgian town houses built by John Pinch the elder in 1815.

The agents quote a guide price of £1.495m for the unspoilt Georgian gem, which stands in a quiet backwater on the upper slopes of Bath, with far-reaching southerly views over the city to the open countryside beyond.

For years, 7, Sion Hill Place was the home of Bath campaigner Major Anthony Crombie, who was horrified at the ease with which Georgian terraces were being demolished and replaced with poor-quality 1960s and 1970s buildings. Maj Crombie became a stalwart of the Bath Preservation Trust, castigating developers and estate agents alike over a period of 40 years.

During that time, the society – represented in court by the major himself, in order to save costs – won a landmark planning-law case in 1990/91, which strengthened the protection of architecturally important conservation areas throughout the country.

Maj Crombie believed in practising what he preached, as his much-loved Georgian home reveals. It now needs complete renovation, Mr Cronan explains, although it still retains fine Georgian features, such as ceiling cornicing, full sash windows, impressive fireplaces and staircases.

Originally arranged as three dwellings, with lower-ground floor and top-floor flats, it now offers the chance to create a splendid family home on five floors, with a superb bay window overlooking the garden to the rear.

7 Sion Hill Place is for sale via Strutt & Parker at £1.495 million – see more details and pictures.

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This blissful castle in Wiltshire looks for all the world as if there ought to be a princess sleeping for a hundred years in the highest room of the turret.

Of the many, many properties which have crossed our desks at Country Life in 2018, this might just be the most immediately entrancing. Is it the graceful proportions? The beautifully-preserved stonework? The perfect castellations?

It’s a bit of all three, of course, but we’ve come to the conclusion that what’s really bowled us over about Grade I-listed Devizes Castle is this main image capturing the castle’s setting in beautiful grounds. It reminds us of nothing so much as the prince in the Sleeping Beauty fighting his way though the foliage to reach a mysterious place whose inhabitants are caught deep in an enchanted sleep.

While the castle itself is out of a fairytale, the asking price of £2.5 million via Savills seems decidedly more down to earth – particularly given that the location, not far from the M4, means that this is a home with easy access to Bristol, London and beyond.

And what a home it is. Set within two and a half acres of grounds, Devizes Castle is a spectacular home that’s just as full of period charm inside as it is outside. There are stone mullioned windows, detailed stone archways, cavernous fireplaces, oak floorboards, and spiral staircases.

Several of the rooms – including the drawing room and study – have ornate ceilings with gilded bosses, while the ‘fernery’ accessed via the drawing room has a beautiful encaustic tiled floor and a wooden ceiling.

The living spaces are set across the ground and first floors, and include a huge kitchen/breakfast room, grand entrance hall with wooden staircase, a library and a long gallery.

There are eight bedrooms in total, five of which are on the second floor, with one more on the first floor and the other two on the third floor – including one in the turret.

There has been a castle on the site since the days of William The Conqueror (the first mention of it is in 1080) and many kings have stayed here over the years, with it being a popular royal residence until its destruction in 1645 during the Civil War.

A new castle – the current castle as it stands – was eventually built on the site in 1830 by prolific Regency architect Henry Edmund Goodridge, and it remains a real landmark overlooking this medieval market town.

Devizes Castle is on the market via Savills at £2,500,000 – see more details and pictures.

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The delightfully pretty Woolmersdon House has all sorts of treasures within, including a library, orangery, secret garden – and a rounded music room with extraordinary acoustics.

Full of history and stories, Woolmersdon House is the sort of home which sounds as if it belongs in the pages of a 1920s novel. Located in beautiful, secluded Somerset countryside a few miles from Bridgwater and with easy access to the M5, it’s a five-bedroom home that is on the market through Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £1.65 million.

The Grade II*-listed house dates back to 1780, and still has a wealth of original features which have been carefully maintained, restored and – in the case of the Orangery – added to sympathetically by the present owners, the Fishers, who have lived here for 23 years.

‘It’s a very peaceful, beautiful and warm house,’ says Mrs Fisher. ‘Most of the additions made to the house have been through our style of interior décor.

‘We have always felt like custodians of the house, preserving the Georgian style both inside and out.’

The library is one example. The Fishers have always used a local carpenter whenever the sash windows have needed repair, and called him in again to build the library as it is now from English Oak.

Woolmersdon also has something rather special: a round music room (currently listed on the details as the drawing room) with superb acoustics, so good that the Fishers have used it for local concerts and musical fundraisers – as well as their own musical interests.

Upstairs, the five bedrooms – three of which are en-suite – are arranged along a long corridor, with one of those rooms occupying the space above the music room, and enjoying the same curved walls.

Outside, there are almost eight acres of gardens and paddocks, including a ‘secret garden’ accessed via an arched doorway in the adjoining wall between the house and the garage, and used by the family for al fresco dining.

The house has one element which has never been used by the family, however: the bell at the side of the house, by the kitchen doors. It was once used to call people in to the house for lunch – until, that is, the son of the family who lived here during the First World War joined the Royal Air Force. Tragically, he was killed in the war, and his heartbroken mother cut the bell chain down, vowing never to ring the bell again for her son would never hear it. The old chain is still kept with the house, passed from custodian to custodian, all of whom have kept the lady’s promise and never rung the bell since.

Woolmersdon House is for sale via Strutt & Parker at £1.65m – see more details and pictures.

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Surviving a World War II bombing that destroyed half of its crescent, indiscriminate postwar ‘redevelopment’ and 45 years of neglect, Lansdown Place has retained all of its charm and many of its original features. Penny Churchill reports.

For the Romans, it was the genius loci – the protective ‘spirit of a place’ – that gave a building or location its distinctive character; nowhere is this elusive spirit more gracefully captured than in Roman Bath’s grand Georgian crescents and squares, where 12, Lansdown Place East is the latest example of a classic, 18th-century town house to come to the open market.

For sale through Strutt & Parker and Carter Jonas at a guide price of £1.75 million, Grade II-listed 12, Lansdown Place East is one of a landmark curved terrace of 16 houses on the northern slopes of Bath, linked to the Grade I-listed Lansdown Crescent, although designed on a less monumental scale and fronted by a paddock grazed in summer by sheep belonging to a local farmer.

Unlike many of Bath’s most famous houses, which have views either of the city or of the surrounding countryside, Lansdown Place East enjoys wonderful views both to the south over the city and to the north, over nearby villages and rolling open countryside.

Together with Lansdown Place East and its twin, Lansdown Place West, Lansdown Crescent was designed and built between 1789 and 1793 by the architect John Palmer, in partnership with the banker and builder John Lowder and businessman and art connoisseur Charles Spackman, who acted as agent for the supply of building materials.

Throughout its existence, 12, Lansdown Place East appears to have enjoyed the protection of its own genius loci. Not only did the house survive a Second World War bombing raid that destroyed Nos 4 to 9, which were later rebuilt, it also escaped the indiscriminate postwar ‘redevelopment’ suffered by many of Bath’s finest Georgian buildings.

In the 1950s, 12, Lansdown Place East was owned by Michael Briggs, a longstanding chairman of the Bath Preservation Trust, whose wife, Isabel Colegate, wrote numerous novels about life among the English upper classes, including The Shooting Party (1980), The Orlando Trilogy (1984) and Winter Journey (1995).

She shared her husband’s passion for historic buildings and, during their time at 12, Lansdown Place East, renovated its elegant internal space in classic Georgian style, before taking on the even greater challenge of restoring and improving romantic Grade I-listed Midford Castle on the outskirts of the city over a period of some 45 years, between 1961 and 2006.

During roughly the same period, the fortunes of 12, Lansdown Place East apparently took a turn for the worse. According to its current owner, James Whatmore, the house was ‘in poor condition’ when, in 2007, he bought it and embarked on a gradual scheme of improvements, which included a new roof, new hardwood sash windows, three new bathrooms and a new gas-fired central-heating system with two boilers.

Some of the decor from the Briggs era has been retained, but many original features, including fine ceiling cornices, Georgian doors and door locks, have been painstakingly sourced and fitted to compliment the original joinery, stone and wood floors and fireplaces.

The building’s 4,802sq ft of living space is arranged over five floors, with the kitchen and dining room on the ground floor providing access to the pretty rear garden. The first floor houses the drawing room and a bedroom, with four further bedrooms on the second and third floors. The lower-ground floor is a large versatile space, leading to a vault and a wine cellar below.

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The sprawling Rumleigh House is a huge, Grade II-listed home in Devon that offers intriguing possibilities – and a huge amount of work.

Sometimes, when looking at property, it’s the garden that grabs the attention. Sometimes it’s an internal shot. Most often, it’s the initial exterior appearance.

In the case of Rumleigh House, situated in the village of Bere Alston in the heart of the Tamar Valley AONB, we can’t help denying that it’s the price. Agents Strutt & Parker are quoting just £750,000 for this 10-bedroom, Grade II-listed mansion which boasts a magnificent situation, gloriously-proportioned rooms and many centuries of fascinating history.

The original owners of the house and estate were the de Rumleghe family, whose roots here stretch back to the 14th century. As you’d have guessed the current house is nothing like so old. The building as it now stands evolved from a single farmer’s cottage and most of the building dates to Georgian times, with the latest addition being made in 1905.

The de Rumleghes are long gone, but dynasties clearly thrive here since the vendor’s family have been here since 1929, around which time Rumleigh House’s 29 acres of land were renowned as one of South Devon’s finest market gardens. Remnants of some of the old wooden greenhouses from that era are still on the site to this day.

The greenhouses, sadly, are not the only things which need some TLC to return them to their former glory. Rumleigh is in desperate need of renovation throughout.

At some point the house has been split into four separate apartments, and as such the floorplan would need a complete rethink were it to be returned to use as a single dwelling. There are reception rooms on the second floor, bedrooms on the ground floor, kitchens and work rooms seemingly around every corner. It’s like a Cluedo board designed by Picasso.

The first floor alone includes a double-aspect kitchen with bay window, an enclosed veranda, a vast sitting room and, er, what appears to be an en-suite reception room

Yet the good news is that all around there are grand period features which have – thankfully – been retained. There are beautiful ceilings, windows and fireplaces, fine wooden floors which (on the surface at least) appear to be in good condition. And best of all is one the grand 18th century staircase, furnished with panelling, turned balusters and column newel posts.

Not all the remaining features are quite so charming, of course. But it doesn’t take much to see the potential here.

The joys of Rumleigh continue outside, in the six acres of rolling grounds surrounding the house. There is a rose garden, walled garden, pond garden and orchard, a number of barns and workshops, a quadruple garage and a hen run.

Should you need more space, there are a further 23 acres for sale as a separate lot. These take in woodland, river frontage on the Tamar, pasture and agricultural buildings including a huge, metal-framed greenhouse and a tractor shed.

Opportunities to take on and transform such lovely spots aren’t common. And given the location in the beautiful area north of Plymouth – and therefore with reasonable road, rail and air links – we’d hope that this will once again become a magical home. Let’s hope that the next owners start their own dynasty and remain here for many years to come.

Rumleigh House is for sale via Strutt & Parker as a whole or in two lots, at £750,000 for the house and six acres, plus £250,000 for the remaining 23 acres – see more details and pictures.

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Amid steams and waterfalls, Rose Cottage boasts a stunning tea garden perfect for hosting a few friends – or 185 neighbours.

It’s not often that you find a home and profession all rolled into one but we’ve seen a few cross our desks in recent months. We’ve had vineyards from all around the world, beautiful country hotels perfect for family living or running as a business, and now we’ve added a new potential career to our collection: a thriving tea garden complete with a restaurant that can cater for 185 tea-lovers.

Mini waterfalls, a footbridge, a lake and a clear stream pepper the playfully picturesque 1.4-acre grounds around Grade II-listed Rose Cottage, currently on the market at a guide price £995,000 with Jackson-Stops.

In the centre of Cockington village, a mere mile from Torquay, the delightful cottage is in fine fettle. A fireplace with wood burner greets one walking into the sitting room where doors lead out into the garden, a rolling 1.4 acres teeming with delightful features.

A bedroom with a dressing room sits at the top of the house, charmingly worked into Rose Cottage’s unusually quirky, historic architecture.

The first floor boats three further bedrooms and another bathroom, while a dining room and idyllic country kitchen join the sitting room on the ground floor.

While these attributes alone make this property worthy of consideration, the tea garden is what sets Rose Cottage apart from other country houses currently on the market.

Decked terraces and covered dining areas spread out from the house into the surrounding tree-lined gardens, sporting their own dedicated kitchen, bathrooms and serving area.

The cottage has become quite famous for its cream teas and live piano music, entertaining the residents of the quiet village for the last twenty years.

With summer around the corner we cannot think of a more idyllic place to enjoy a few scones – just make sure you put on the cream first, then the jam. This is Devon, not Cornwall!

Rose Cottage is on the market with Jackson-Stops for a guide price of £995,000. See more pictures here.

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The Old Manor House survived the decline of Radipole since Roman times to become a beautifully atmospheric family home, complete with over an acre of landscaped gardens.

In Roman times, the village of Radipole, on the River Wey, was a port of some importance, through which trade flowed to the thriving garrison town of Dorchester, now Dorset’s county town. Over time, the growth of Weymouth as a sailing and tourist centre, allied to changing parish boundaries, reduced Radipole to a quiet backwater on the northern edge of town.

However, the ancient centre of the village, comprising the 12th-century parish church of St Ann, the adjoining 16th-century manor house and the 18th-century schoolhouse, has survived miraculously intact and is now on the market with Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £1.85 million.

Tucked away behind the church and surrounded by trees and a high stone wall, The Old Manor House – the oldest part of which may have started life as a priest’s house or abbey grange – was owned by Cerne Abbey until its dissolution in 1539. A year later, Henry VIII granted the manor to Humphrey Watkins of Holwell, near Sherborne, who passed it to his eldest son, Richard.

He altered and extended the house in about 1580 (possibly to accommodate some or all of his six elder sisters and five younger brothers) and his initials ‘R. W.’ can still be seen above the doorway.

In the 1930s, The Old Manor House was owned by Capt and Mrs Cemmington Leigh, who employed the eminent Dorset architect Ernest Walmsley Lewis to oversee the careful restoration of the manor and its outbuildings over a 10-year period. His trademark attention to detail is evident throughout the house, many original features of which have been carefully preserved by the current owners, who bought it in 1994.

The Old Manor House, listed Grade II*, stands in just over an acre of landscaped gardens and wildflower meadow and offers more than 5,000sq ft of wonderfully atmospheric living space, including three spacious reception rooms.

The dining room boasts its original flagstone floor, exposed beams and open fireplace, as does the triple-aspect snug; the sitting room is another naturally light room with high ceilings, a large open fireplace and a solid oak floor, made from Scottish oak. A large, well-equipped kitchen/breakfast room is well placed at the heart of the ground floor.

A stone spiral staircase leads to the first and second floors and the master bedroom suite, plus five further bedrooms, two family bathrooms and a large office. A one-bedroom annexe adjoining the house provides additional family guest accommodation or the potential for holiday lets.

The Old Manor House is on the market with Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £1.85 million. Click here for more information and pictures. 

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Gable Court sits in one of the prettiest villages in Dorset, and its an ideal family home for anyone wishing to escape to the West Country.

If you’re one of the many Country Life readers who dream of living in a stunning period village house in the West Country, now is the time to nip down the A30 to Sherborne in west Dorset.

Anthony Pears of Jackson-Stops in Sherborne quotes a guide price of £1.5m for Grade II-listed Gable Court, which stands proudly at the heart of Yetminster’s conservation area, its early-17th-century origin confirmed by a date stone of 1601 on the front façade.

Home to the current vendors since 1987, the house exudes a calm serenity throughout its 5,707sq ft of living space, which includes two main reception rooms, a conservatory, a kitchen/breakfast room, a playroom, six bedrooms and three bathrooms, with further accommodation available in a separate two-bedroom cottage.

A large stone mullioned window floods the entrance hall with natural light and the two main reception rooms, with their beamed ceilings, stone windows and beautiful fireplaces showcase the period features of the property.

A house perfect for entertaining, Gable Court sport a sizeable dining room and a playroom for even larger parties, with wide doors which open out into the spectacular garden.

Gable Court’s enchanting private grounds provide a spectacular setting for the house, with stone steps winding through lawned areas to the bottom of the garden, through which a river flows gently, and the many different garden ‘rooms’ offer a variety of places in which adults can sit and dream as children play.

The fairytale bridge stretching over the river makes the garden seem almost magical despite the fact that it sports many practical features, including a wood store, an outside bathroom, barns, storage buildings and a shed – as well as a large garage.

Within the grounds also sits the quaint two-bedroom cottage, offering the chance to be spare guest accommodation, a dedicated nanny flat or even a quiet B&B in the middle of the village’s conservation area.

Gable Court is on the market with Jackson-Stops at a guide price of £1.5 million. For more information and images, please click here. 

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Once part of a large estate, The Old Rectory in Nether Compton was built in the early 1820s, with Victorian additions added in the later part of the century and a garden room installed by the current owners during their tenure of over thirty years.

The area of north-west Dorset between Sherborne and the county boundary with Somerset is a timeless, wooded landscape of ancient villages linked by narrow, winding lanes enclosed by high grassy banks or walls of local stone.

Here, Knight Frank and Symonds & Sampson are joint agents in the sale of imposing The Old Rectory in the village of Nether Compton, west Dorset – three miles west of Sherborne and three miles east of Yeovil, Somerset – at a guide price of £2.25m.

Historically, Nether Compton and its neighbour, Over Compton, were part of a large estate owned, from 1736 until 2003, by the Goodden family, whose seat was Compton House at Over Compton.

In 1883, Col John Goodden inherited the estate and, throughout the 1880s and 1890s, carried out a number of improvements in Nether Compton, restoring and extending the church and adding new buildings, many of which were designed by the architect Evelyn Hellicar.

Distinguished 20th-century residents include the test pilot, aviation historian and naval architect Harald Penrose, who lived at Nether Compton for 50 years in a house that he designed himself. Actresses Kristin and Serena Scott Thomas also spent their childhoods in the village.

Built of the warm local Ham stone under a slate roof, The Old Rectory, listed Grade II, dates from about 1820, with a substantial Victorian extension added in 1860/1870 and a garden room created by the current owners during their 35-year tenure. The house stands in more than three acres of wooded, park-like gardens, well stocked with shrub beds and borders.

It offers 6,135sq ft of light and airy living space, including reception and inner halls, three fine reception rooms, a well-designed kitchen/breakfast room, a garden room, master and guest bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, three further bedrooms and a family bathroom, plus extensive cellars.

The vendors hold an assignable lease on surrounding glebe land of some 10.8 acres; this expires in 2022, but could be extended by agreement with the Diocese of Salisbury. There is also planning and listed-building consent to convert the stables to additional annexe accommodation.

The Old Rectory in Nether Compton is on the market through Knight Frank and Symonds & Sampson at a guide price of £2.25million. Click here for more information and pictures. 

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Our property correspondent Penny Churchill comes across a lot of properties, yet she's still clearly entranced by this beautiful family home in Frampton.

If ever a house and garden encapsulated the Georgian rectory dream, it’s Grade II-listed The Old Rectory at Frampton, six miles north of Dorchester, for which Knight Frank quote a guide price of £1.25m.

Built in 1726, in the classic, square-cut Georgian style, the gracious former rectory stands next to the church in a quintessential Dorset village setting.

Unusually, it’s been little altered since it was built – apart from a discreet Victorian extension at its northern end – until a decade ago, when the present owners bought it and had the entire property restored and refurbished throughout.

Inside there is some 3,500sq ft of accommodation, including three reception rooms, five bedrooms and four bathrooms.

The vendors have been careful to retain the charm of the many original features, with tall bay windows, wooden floors and fireplaces in the reception rooms.

The drawing room – pictured at the top of this page – exemplifies many of these charms, with elegant cornicing and sash windows which can be covered by original working shutters.

The setting is idyllic. The house is set in just over an acre of formal and wild gardens on three sides, with a kitchen garden at the rear.

Beyond the main home there is stabling and garaging in the coachhouse that comes as part of the property, and which is Grade II-listed in its own right.

The Old Rectory in Frampton is for sale via Knight Frank at £1.25 million – see more details and pictures.

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This home, built in the 17th century history, has history which stretches back even further in this quaint village in Somerset, yet the latest owners have brought it up to date with everything from a dining kitchen to a heated swimming pool.

Fresh onto the market at a guide price of £1.15m through Knight Frank, comes The Old Rectory at East Chinnock in Somerset – a thriving small village with a 17th-century church, pre-school, pub and post office, some 3½ miles west of Yeovil along the A30.

The Old Rectory, listed Grade II, probably dates from about 1680 and was altered and extended in both the Georgian and Victorian periods.

Built of Ham stone on two storeys with slate and Roman clay-tile roofs, it has been the family home of the current owners for the past 15 years, during which time they have restored and updated the house.

Among the additions are a a smart conservatory to create an inviting new kitchen, an excellent family space for eating and entertaining.

The house, clad in mature wisteria, stands in just under an acre of well-laid-out gardens, where a high stone wall conceals a heated swimming pool and a small orchard.

The main building provides more than 4,700sq ft of surprisingly spacious accommodation, including four/five reception rooms, six/seven bedrooms and three bathrooms; three of the bedrooms, including the master, have lovely views over the village and the surrounding countryside.

The present owners have also converted the former coach house to a self-contained, two-bedroom guest cottage with obvious letting potential.

This is a property with fascinating history. The manor and church of East Chinnock were endowed to the 12th-century Cluniac Priory founded at Montacute by William, Earl of Mortaine, and held by the priory until its dissolution in 1538–39.

In 1561, the manor was bought by Henry Portman, in whose family it remained until 1924, when lands and property belonging to the estate were sold.

The Old Rectory at East Chinnock is for sale for Knight Frank at £1.15m – see more pictures and details.