The write stuff

From picturesque settings to Forsyte Saga inspiration, the West Country has something for everyone

- Penny Churchill

TODAY sees the launch in COUNTRY LIFE of one of Somerset's most captivating country houses, the exquisite, Grade II*-listed Maperton House, set in eight acres of immaculate gardens and grounds at Maperton, three miles south-west of Wincanton, which comes to the market with a guide price of £9.5 million through Ed Cunningham of Knight Frank (020-7861 1080) and Lindsay Cuthill of Blue Book (07967 555545). In his book In Search of the Perfect Country House (2007), former COUNTRY LIFE Editor Marcus Binney rated Maperton House among the 'top 10 most perfect houses of all periods in Britain'. Indeed, it is now even more perfect, following a complete and sensitive renovation by the current owners during their 14-year tenure.

As did many fine houses on the Somerset/Dorset border, Maperton started life as a hunting box in the Blackmore Vale country. Before that, the manor was listed in the Domesday survey and, in 1600, was held by Francis Hastings of North Cadbury. Constructed of the locally quarried golden Ham stone under clay-tile roofs, the present Maperton House was built on the site of an earlier 18th-century manor, but dates mostly from 1802, with the addition, in 1876, of the striking Victorian conservatory to the garden front.

Its Historic England listing (March 24, 1961) further highlights 'many good early 19th-century features inside the house, which has been little altered, except by a late-20th-century addition on the east side and demolition of some work on the north side'. This probably refers to the addition of the pillared entrance portico and west-front bay window by the Ridley family in the early 1900s and the demolition of a Victorian extension by musician Georgie Fame, the owner in the 1970s.