Changing places

A modern masterpiece leads a pack of three fine homes in the north of England

- Penny Churchill

BEAUTY, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. When, in the early 2000s, Gill Farm at Gilling East in the Howardian Hills AONB, two miles south of Oswaldkirk and 15 miles north of York, came up for sale, it failed to resonate with local buyers, who saw merely a ramshackle stone farmhouse and crumbling buildings surrounded by 60-odd acres of decaying wood- land. Only developer Julian Pilling, who grew up in the area, saw the potential of the peaceful hidden valley that has no public rights of way. There, over a period of seven years from 2015, he created the magical Valley Farm estate that is now on the market with Savills in York (01904 617821) and London (020–7409 8881) at a guide price of £8 million.

At its heart stands the sleek, ultra-modern main house, an 18,000sq ft symphony in concrete, glass and stone, which sits comfortably within the landscape against a spectacular backdrop of seven cascading, spring-fed lakes, healthy, well-managed, mixed woodland and organic grassland grazed by several species of deer originating from the Duke of Bedford’s Woburn Abbey estate.