Et in Arcadia ego

Manors in and around 'the great paradise of England'-Somerset's Vale of Taunton Deane

- Penny Churchill

Property market

THE fertile Vale of Taunton Deane, bounded by west Somerset’s three hill ranges—the Brendons in the west, Quantocks in the east and Blackdowns in the south—is an area of rich soil and plentiful water, described in 1609 by cartographer and antiquary John Norden as ‘the great paradise of England’. According to the Victoria County History, the manor of Taunton Deane provided ‘a princely income’ for its powerful manorial landowners, among them the bishops of Winchester, who owned it from the 10th century and built the great castle at Taunton.

The parish of Fivehead, nine miles east of Taunton, lies on a ridge of reclaimed land that stretches from the small town of Langport to the Blackdown Hills, and overlooks Sedgemoor, part of the Somerset Levels and the Vale of the Isles. Fresh to the market through Strutt & Parker comes Grade II*-listed Langford Manor at Fivehead, an impeccably restored Elizabethan manor house built around a 15th-century core and set in 7½ acres of immaculate gardens and grounds with views over open countryside. Selling agent Oliver Custance Baker (01392 229405) quotes a guide price of £5 million.

According to its Historic England listing, there has been a house on the site since at least the 13th century. The present house is built on a double E-plan with a central 15thcentury, east-west range; it was enlarged and remodelled in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, substantially restored in 1905 and again in the 20th and 21st centuries. In 1518, the manor was left to the Dean and Canons of Exeter Cathedral, who owned it until about 1860, during which time it was mainly occupied by tenant farmers.