Good Things Come To Those Who Wait

After three years of stalling, the English country-house market picked up again in 2019

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Three years after Brexit slammed the brakes on the upper end of the country-house market, a wind of change began to blow through rural counties of England way beyond the M25 and some fine country properties that were friendless in 2018 changed hands during 2019.

In south Devon, the lure of the lonely sea and sky brought buyers back to the waters of the South Hams, one of whom was bewitched by the spectacular Gurrow Point on the banks of the River Dart at Dittisham, seven miles from Dartmouth by road and a lazy two miles by water. Launched on the market through Savills at a guide price of £10 million in October 2018, the immaculate, eight-bedroom riverside house, set on its own magical 79-acre peninsula with a jetty and moorings, found a buyer in November 2019.

Across the border in Somerset, September 2018 saw the launch onto the market—at a guide price of £6.5m through Knight Frank—of 647-acre Langham Farm at Luxborough on the edge of Exmoor. A lovely sporting estate incorporating the renowned Chargot pheasant and partridge shoot, it came with a farmhouse, a shoot lodge and modern farm buildings for grain storage and cattle rearing. The shooting fraternity celebrated in May 2019, when the estate was sold to a party who will continue to operate it as before, Rupert Sweeting reveals.