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JUNE 29, 2022
Property market
Penny Churchill
An Englishman’s home is his castle Two landmark properties, Gilling Castle in North Yorkshire and a Cotswold manor farmhouse where the remains of a Norman motte and bailey can still be seen, come to market
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UCH has been the response from interested parties to the relaunch onto the market of Grade I-listed Gilling Castle at East Gilling in the Howardian Hills AONB, 19 miles north of York, that selling agent Edward Stoyle has been more or less camping out at the former prep school to Ampleforth College for the past several weeks. Having failed to find a buyer when last offered for sale in 2018, the historic, mainly Georgian country house is now being offered 108 | Country Life | June 29, 2022
with almost 100 acres of gardens, farmland, woodland and golf course, at a guide price of £3.75 million for the whole—a proposition that has elicited a raft of enquiries, not only from the UK, but from as far afield as the Middle East, South Africa and the US. The sale is being handled by Lindsay Cuthill of Savills Country Department (020–7016 3820) and Mr Stoyle in York (01904 617821). COUNTRY L IFE’s Architectural Editor, John Goodall, once a pupil at Gilling, sets the
scene in his introduction to the first of two articles published in the magazine in December 2020, in which he traces the intriguing history of the medieval building: ‘Gilling Castle does not obviously declare either its depth of history or its exceptional interest. It stands at the point of a steep-sided ridge overlooking the Vale of Pickering, yet the main front today decisively turns its back on the view and masks the architectural complexity of the building. To the modern
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Left: Imposing Gilling Castle, North Yorkshire, commands its 100-odd acres. £3.75m. Above: The Great Chamber, one of Britain’s finest and most complete Elizabethan interiors the remodelling of the old 14th-century house. Building on top of the medieval walls and leaving the ground floor intact, he reconstructed the first and second floors and created the magnificent Great Chamber, the principal room of the house, completed in 1585. A remarkable example of the richness and elaborate quality of a late-Elizabethan interior, it was to survive, almost unaltered, the early-18th-century remodelling of the interior by Viscount Fairfax of Emley, who also added the wings enclosing the front court. visitor, therefore, who approaches up a densely wooded bank from the village beneath, the impression is not of a castle commanding its surrounds—a relationship only apparent from a distance—but of a large, coherent Georgian country house enclosed by trees.’ Originally the home of the Etton family, who appeared there at the end of the 12th century, the fortified manor house, the basement of which still forms the core of the present building, was built by Thomas de Etton in the latter half of the 14th century. In 1349, the year following the outbreak of the Black Death, Thomas’s father had settled the manor of Gilling on his wife’s family, the Fairfaxes, in the event of the failure of the Ettons to produce a male heir: thus Thomas Fairfax was able to claim the property in 1492. Fairfax’s great grandson, Sir William Fairfax, who inherited the estate in 1571, undertook
To the visitor, the impression is not of a castle, but of a large, coherent Georgian country house This branch of the Fairfax family died out on the death of Mrs Barnes (Lavinia Fairfax) in 1885, after which Gilling Castle passed through several hands before being acquired by Ampleforth Abbey in 1929. An interesting footnote to the sale was the vendor’s decision to offer the historic interior of the Great Chamber for sale separately from that of the rest of the castle.
Dr Goodall relates how, in 1930, American publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst paid an ‘astonishing’ £23,000 for it (reputedly twice the price paid for Gilling Castle by the Ampleforth trustees), whereupon ‘the entire room, apart from the ceiling, was hurriedly stripped out and packed up… In the event, the packing cases got no further than London. There they survived the Blitz, but following Hearst’s death in 1951, were purchased unopened from his executors by Malletts’. A campaign initiated by the Abbot of Ampleforth to raise funds for the acquisition of the historic fittings was successful and the start of the 1953 school year saw the Great Chamber, by then used as a refectory, restored to its original splendour. The prep school relocated in 2018, since when its buildings have been carefully maintained and used occasionally for summer schools and other events. Gilling Castle, listed Grade I, is an architecturally important building, with the entrance hall, dining room, long gallery and chapel of particular note. The former clock tower and stables— now dormitories and classrooms—are listed Grade II, as are the stone gate piers. The castle and its immediate environs, including amenity woodland, playing fields and gardens, total some 30 acres, with the nine-hole golf-course, part of the avenue and the rookery adding a further 70 acres or June 29, 2022 | Country Life | 109
Property market
The long history of Manor Farm, Ascottunder-Wychwood, Gloucestershire, is palpable and the 43 acres of grounds, including a lake, are a wildlife haven. £4m
thereabouts. The estate is being sold with vacant possession on completion, with the exception of the golf course, which is let on lease until 2030. Although it’s too early to say what the future holds for Gilling Castle, it appears that prospective purchasers are already studying the viability of a number of schemes that could see the estate sold for a future as a country hotel, wedding venue, country club or even a grand, private, rural estate in the heart of one of North Yorkshire’s most picturesque landscapes. Down in the Cotswold AONB, Helen Whitfield of Strutt & Parker’s Oxford office (01865 366660) quotes a guide price of £4m for 43-acre Manor Farm at Ascott-underWychwood in the lovely Evenlode Valley, six miles from Chipping Norton, nearly seven 110 | Country Life | June 29, 2022
miles from Daylesford Farm Shop and 12½ miles from Soho Farmhouse at Great Tew. Owned by the same family for the past 40 years, Manor Farm House, listed Grade II*, stands within the bailey of Ascott D’Oilly Castle, a traditional Norman motte and bailey built by Roger d’Oilly between 1129 and 1150, when it comprised a large complex of an inner bailey and a stone keep, surrounded by a motte.
The castle mound and much of the bailey are clearly visible, as are fragments of the castle wall Following a rebellion, the keep was pulled down in about 1174 on the orders of Henry II and was never rebuilt, although various
earthworks still survive and the inner bailey became part of the centre of Manor Farm. The castle mound and much of the bailey are still clearly visible, as are the Grade IIlisted fragments of the castle wall and an ancient doorway in the garden. The present house, which dates mainly from the 16th and 17th centuries, incorporates an early-13th-century window surround thought to have been part of a private chapel. The house offers some 5,370sq ft of living space on two floors, including a reception hall, four reception rooms and up to eight bedrooms (two unconverted), plus two bathrooms and a substantial wing with potential to extend, subject to the usual consents. Approached via a long drive that opens onto a large courtyard, the house comes with a range of period stone barns and a charming brick-built Elizabethan granary. The land is a haven for wildlife, too, with some fine mature trees, a lake and a long stretch of the southern bank of the delightful River Evenlode.
Properties of the week
Annunciata Elwes
Where the wild things are
Devon, £2.5 million Close to Clyst Hydon village, near Cullompton, walkways snake through the wildflower meadows within the 11½ acres of Sherway Farm, which can also be admired from astride a horse (there are stables and a former sand school) or even from a car, as the drive sweeps along between one meadow and an area of formal lawn. The bay windows of the main house offer views of the garden, as do its four bedrooms. There are three successful holiday cottages known as The Dairy, The Shippen and The Coach House, each with a hot tub (www. sherwayfarm.co.uk). Meanwhile, garden room Hobbits enjoys views as far as the south coast and there’s plenty more to wander through outside, from bluebell woods to a stream and treehouse above a pond. Savills (01392 455717)
112 | Country Life | June 29, 2022
Hampshire, £2.25 million On the outskirts of the village of Micheldever, Deer’s Leap is an unusual, oak-frame, barnstyle house, clad in English cedar, that draws on the Arts-andCrafts for inspiration and was designed by the architect Huw Thomas. ‘Magnificent arches over the most impressive logburning chimney’ are part of the exposed joinery aesthetic and, together with a galleried landing, provide a focal point to the spacious four-bedroom house. The 3¼-acre grounds include an ornamental pond, gardens, stables, garage, car barn, garden store, kennels and workshop, with direct access into the Forestry Commission’s tranquil Micheldever Woods, known for its flurry of bluebells in spring. Winkworth (01962 866777)
Alamy
Beautiful houses where wildflowers grow
9000
East Sussex, £1.5 million A little TLC was required at this ‘seriously handsome’ Grade II-listed early-15th-century medieval hall house on the Udimore ridge, near the ancient port town of Rye, when the current owners bought it in 2016. It has now been fully restored to its former glory, using only traditional techniques and materials. With four bedrooms, old brick floors, inglenook fireplaces and Georgian and Victorian additions, Sowden’s grounds of 2½ acres include a productive kitchen garden, two underground water pumps and borders filled with honeysuckle, hydrangeas, geraniums, roses and digitalis. There is also an orchard with apple and fig trees, beyond which are sloping wildflower meadows with specimen trees and mown walkways, from where there are glorious views over undulating countryside, and an area of woodland with a tree house. Phillips & Stubbs (01797 227338) West Sussex, £1.7 million Of particular note at Loveders Farm, on the outskirts of the charming villages of Nutbourne and Southbourne, is the 27ft kitchen/dining room with a triple aspect and doors leading onto a terrace, beyond which lie a studio annexe, currently a home office and gym, a ‘secret’ courtyard garden, outdoor swimming pool, tennis court, formal lawns and a wildflower meadow. Similarly, natural light features elsewhere throughout the five-bedroom house, from the dual-aspect drawing room with its inglenook fireplace to the master bedroom, which has a vaulted ceiling and en-suite bathroom. Hamptons (01243 630318) Oxfordshire, £3 million Grade II-listed Blenheim House, in the village of Warborough, not far from Wallingford, has long been a much cherished family home. A mixture of two 18th-century cottages, combined with a Victorian hexagonal tower in 1910 and another hexagonal wing added in 1912, the result is an airy six-bedroom property, with a lovely drawing room and dining room, both of which open into the garden, a west-facing conservatory and a lantern roof flooding the upper floor with natural light. A two-bedroom cottage at the end of the drive is attached to two enclosed stables, one of which provides further accommodation. The nearly 1½ acres also include a swimming pool, semi-circular pleached hornbeam hedge echoing the shape of a stone fountain and a paddock currently frothing with cow parsley, through which mown paths meander. Savills (020–7016 3780) June 29, 2022 | Country Life | 113