Page 10
BSPC FEATURE PROPERTY
The complete package: a quintessential family Windram House has many of the hallmarks of a classic Georgian property – symmetrical architecture with sandstone quoins and lintels, elegant and beautifully proportioned room sizes, and large multi-paned sash windows.
For this reason the property is being sold in two lots: Windram House and Cottage at Lot 1 and the paddock /building plot as Lot 2.
Yet this beautiful house, which sits well back off the road in the village of Oxnam and includes extensive garden grounds sheltered by a woodland and woodland orchard, was actually built in 1937 and has been a much loved home to the Simpson family for the last 60 years.
Windram is an ideal family home – spacious, but not so big as to be high maintenance.
The property also has a detached two bedroomed cottage - with its own garden, an adjacent garage, and separate gated entrance - within the grounds. The cottage, which also has a living room, small kitchen and shower room, has scope for improvement and an extension at the side, rear or into the garage, subject to planning consents etc. Beyond the cottage is a paddock and existing outbuilding, which could be adapted to provide stables (there is water but no electricity). As this site currently has planning consent for a detached dwelling house, it also provides a useful building plot.
The house takes its name from the windram (or windmill) generator that originally supplied the house with electricity – happily, long since replaced with mains power!
The interior offers flexible accommodation, with a traditional slate-floored entrance vestibule (cloakroom off) leading into a newly carpeted hall, star of which is the carved oak and Columbian pine staircase. Off the hall is a spacious drawing room with dual aspect windows and french doors opening onto the patio and garden, an attractive period-style fireplace and open fire, and in true Georgian style, delicate but decorative plasterwork on the ceiling.
BSPC FEATURE PROPERTY
Page 11
home in an idyllic village setting near Oxnam The formal dining room is a similarly sizable reception room, again with dual aspect windows, working fireplace, and decorative plasterwork. Completing the ground floor accommodation is an attractive study/snug, an 18ft dining–size fitted kitchen (Aga included) and an adjoining sun room, which is glazed on three sides and opens to the garden. Upstairs, off a particularly bright landing that is provided with abundant natural light from a triple window, are four bedrooms (three double size and one single) and a bathroom with adjoining WC and a large linen cupboard, the latter offering scope for extending the existing bathroom layout. When Jean Simpson and her husband George bought the property in the 1950s they were inspired by the house but also by the setting. “We had three daughters and loved the fact that Oxnam is a proper village, with a primary school,” says Jean.
Windram House, Oxnam, TD8 6RD Lot 1 - House and Cottage Offers Around £495,000 Lot 2 - Paddock / Building plot Offers Around £50,000
Details on page 7
“We also felt instantly at home in the house and have been very happy here. It’s a wonderful home and rural environment in which to bring up children, yet only ten miles from Kelso and four miles from Jedburgh.” A lovely final tribute, the original owner - a lady who was 71 when she built the house and lived in it for a further ten years – left a little plaque above the door from the vestibule to the hall, which reads: ‘Bless this House.’ The plaque has remained insitu ever since – and will be there to welcome Windram’s new owners, who like the Simpsons, will doubtless feel doubly blessed.