IT’S been a very good year for sales of country houses and estates in the West Country and, according to Oliver Custance Baker of Strutt & Parker in Exeter (01392 215631), it’s not finished yet, as he kicks off his autumn campaign with the launch onto the market of two exceptional, but quite different country properties.
For sale at a guide price of £3 million, Plymtree Manor is an elegant, Grade II*listed, William and Mary house set in just over 8½ acres of formal and informal gardens, orchard and paddocks on the edge of the rural village of Plymtree, 3½ miles south of Cullompton and 12 miles north-east of Exeter. According to its listing, the house, then known as Hayne House, was built in the early 18th century for the Harward family, partly rebuilt and enlarged ‘in the same style’ in the late 19th century by its then owner, Mr Leon, and renovated in 1987 by its current owners, who bought it in 1985. Its early-18thcentury frontage is deemed ‘very impressive and most unusual for Devon’.
For more than 300 years, Hayne House was the family seat of the Harwards, the best-known member of which was the Revd Charles Harward, an Anglican priest who was born there in August 1723 and died there, aged 78, in July 1802. Harward was a sporting parson and a keen farmer, although much of his time was spent at the Court of George III, where he acted as chaplain to the Princess of Wales and tutor to the children of many important courtiers.
This story is from the September 29, 2021 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the September 29, 2021 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Put some graphite in your pencil
Once used for daubing sheep, graphite went on to become as valuable as gold and wrote Keswick's place in history. Harry Pearson inhales that freshly sharpened-pencil smell
Dulce et decorum est
Michael Sandle is the Wilfred Owen of art, with his deeply felt sense of the futility of violence. John McEwen traces the career of this extraordinary artist ahead of his 88th birthday
Heaven is a place on earth
For the women of the Bloomsbury group, their country gardens were places of refuge, reflection and inspiration, as well as a means of keeping loved ones close by, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee
A haunt of ancient peace - The gardens at Iford Manor, near Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire The home of the Cartwright-Hignett family
After recent renovations, this masterpiece of Harold Peto's garden-making must be counted one of the finest gardens in England
It's the plants, stupid
I WON my first prize for gardening when I was nine years old at prep school. My grandmother was delighted-it was she who had sent me the seeds of godetia, eschscholtzia and Virginia stock that secured my victory.
Pretty as a picture
The proliferation of honey-coloured stone cottages is part of what makes the Cotswolds so beguiling. Here, we pick some of our favourites currently on the market
How golden was my valley
These four magnificent Cotswold properties enjoy splendid views of hill and dale
Mere moth or merveille du jour?
Moths might live in the shadows of their more flamboyant butterfly counterparts, but some have equally artistic names, thanks to a 'golden' group, discovers Peter Marren
The magnificent seven
The Mars Badminton Horse Trials, the oldest competition of its kind in the world, celebrates its 75th anniversary this weekend. Kate Green chooses seven heroic winners in its history
Angels in the house
Winged creatures, robed figures and celestial bodies are under threat in a rural church. Jo Caird speaks to the conservators working to save northern Europe's most complete Romanesque wall paintings