Nothing ventured, nothing gained

These four glorious properties need only a modicum of tender loving care and offer great rewards to the far-sighted

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GIVEN the current uncertainty pervading the UK property market as a whole, it is hardly surprising that buyers are reluctant to take on a property in need of modernisation.

However, the launch onto the market of four historic country properties, all in need of a modicum of TLC, may encourage at least a handful of discerning purchasers to take the plunge.

Alastair Mercer of Savills in Guildford (07966 189603) is handling the sale, at a guide price of $2.5 million, of Grade II-listed The Old Manor House, one of the oldest houses in Chilworth, in the picturesque Tillingbourne valley, three miles southeast of the cathedral city and within the Surrey Hills National Landscape. The Old Manor House, with its distinctive redbrick gables, dates from the early 1600s, was encased and extended in the late 1800s, and further extended in the 20th century. It stands on high ground on the edge of the village, surrounded by heathland and where a network of ancient footpaths leads through the ruins of the Gunpowder Mills, a Scheduled Ancient Monument with which the manor shares historic links.

These were established in 1626 on the course of the Tilling Bourne, a tributary of the River Wey, which flowed over a steep gradient thereby ensuring a good flow of water that not only powered the mills, but a number of others including a paper mill producing notes for the Bank of England. The production of gunpowder was a dangerous business that resulted in numerous catastrophic accidents—both the mills were described as 'damnable inventions' by William Cobbett in Rural Rides (1830), following his visit to the 'narrow and exquisitely beautiful vale of Chilworth' in 1822.

The Old Manor House, with a core dating from the early 1600s, is set in three-quarters of an acre at Chilworth in Surrey.