Getting back home from the office never looked so good.
William Peppitt of Savills and Edward Rook of Knight Frank quote a guide price of ‘excess £4m’ for the exquisite, Grade II-listed Cheveney, which stands on high ground on the edge of the ancient village of Yalding, six miles south-west of Maidstone (and roughly the same east of Royal Tunbridge Wells) where the Rivers Teise and Beult join the River Medway.
A grand, sweeping drive with a proper gate. High up on the wishlist.
Approached over a long private driveway, the house dates from the latter half of the 17th century and was originally timber frame, extended in the 19th or early 20th century and restored in the early part of the 20th century.
I could entertain myself for hours mowing that lawn.
Within the past 12 months, the present owners have upgraded the entire house, which now provides 10,864sq ft of impressive family accommodation, with five principal reception rooms, a resplendent kitchen/breakfast room and a three-bedroom, ground-floor apartment, with eight en-suite bedrooms on the first floor and an attic room on the floor above.
Is there anything better than a galleried entrance hall?
The beautifully maintained gardens, some eight acres in all, combine formal beds, landscaped lawns, evergreen and deciduous trees and enchanting lakes.
Maybe one of the more impressive fireplaces you’ll see.
The half-timber-frame Elizabethan house has been extended in keeping with its original design, its surroundings extensively refurbished with large, conservatory-type greenhouses where long, Victorian, lean-to glasshouses previously stood.
A kitchen you could play tennis in. Well, so long as you got rid of all the furniture first.
The gardens and lakes remain much as they were, with a long trimmed box hedge framing a terrace where two cannons were mounted at the top of steps leading to the main lawn, which ran from the house to one end of the largest lake.
The interiors have been sensitively restored to an exceptional standard.
According to research compiled by the present owners, Cheveney has long played a part in the life of Yalding village, notably from the late 19th century until the early 1950s, when the estate was owned, firstly, by Col Arthur Borton, who inherited from his father, Gen Sir Arthur Borton, a distinguished soldier who was Governor of Malta from 1878 to 1884. Gen Borton was succeeded at Cheveney by his son, Amyas, known as Biffy, a pilot who became an air vice-marshal.
A large lake is one of the many features of the spacious gardens.
His elder son, Arthur, known as Bosky, was awarded a Victoria Cross for gallantry in Palestine in November 1917, but died, aged 49, in 1933.
Penny Churchill is Country Life’s property correspondent
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