A National Trust country home to call your own (at least for the next 95 years)

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The utterly beautiful Pamphill Manor in Dorset is owned by the National Trust — but they've put it on the market with one small catch.

The epitome of the country house dream is to live in a country seat so beautiful that it’s the sort of place you’d imagine would normally be a National Trust property. So it’s with some excitement that we turn to today’s property, which is literally a National Trust property — one which the Trust has decided to put on the market to let it become a grand family home once more.

A few miles inland from the Dorset coast, James Toogood of Savills is handling the sale of the exquisite, Grade II*-listed Pamphill Manor at Pamphill, near Wimborne, which similarly dates from the late 17th century and was enlarged in the 18th and early 20th century.

Previously part of the Kingston Lacy estate, ancestral home of the Bankes family who left it to the National Trust in 1982, the manor house, set in 2¼ acres of beautifully kept gardens and grounds, is now offered on a 99-year National Trust lease from 2020 at a guide price of £3.45m.

Obviously, any buyer will want to make sure they’re happy with the terms of the lease — and in particular the Trust’s rules on extending and selling on — but for those happy to accept the deal as it is, this is a stunning place to live, surrounded by an area of National Trust woodland to which there is no public access.

According to the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Pamphill Manor was built around a 16th-century core by Matthew Beethell, who was steward to Sir Ralph Bankes of nearby Kingston Lacy.

In the late 17th/early 18th century, the handsome east front with its striking Dutch gable was added, followed in the early to mid 18th century by the Georgian wing overlooking the driveway.

Well maintained by successive owners, the house offers 8,646sq ft of elegant accommodation on three main floors, including, on the ground floor, a reception hall, library, dining room, sitting room, study, garden room, wine room, kitchen/breakfast area, breakfast room, gym and boot room.

The first floor houses the principal bedroom suite and two en-suite bedrooms, with a playroom/sitting room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, study and a guest/au pair apartment on the second floor.