Once in a generation

Today's Property Market previews the launch onto the market, for the first time since 1985, of one of Kent's most important country houses

- Penny Churchill

GRADE I-listed Linton Park, with its Grade II*-listed gardens, woods and parkland overlooking the Weald, four miles south of Maidstone, promises to be one of the country-house sales of the year— if not of the century to date.

Described by Mark McAndrew of selling agents Strutt & Parker (020–7591 2214) as ‘a jewel in the heart of the Garden of England’, the Linton Park estate comprises the impeccably restored, 28,824sq ft main house, which boasts 12 bedrooms, six principal reception rooms, garden rooms, a catering kitchen and extensive domestic offices; 20 acres of magnificent gardens, historic parkland, a lake and a cricket pitch, some 440 acres in all; and a coach house with a flat above and 16 further residential properties, all in excellent order and producing a considerable income. He quotes a guide price of ‘excess £32 million’ for the estate as a whole.

Alternatively, offers of more than £17.5m are invited for Lot 1, comprising the striking, stucco-fronted main house, the coach house, gate lodge, gardens, grounds, parkland, lake and cricket pitch—some 316 acres in all; Lot 2, the residential portfolio of 13 houses and cottages let on assured shorthold tenancies or service occupancies, calls for ‘offers in excess of £13.5m’, with ‘offers over £1m’ sought for Ranters Land, a 96-acre parcel of good arable and woodland to the south of the property, separated from the parkland by Butt Green Lane.

In the first of two COUNTRY LIFE articles by the magazine’s long-time Architectural Editor Christopher Hussey (March 29 and