Grade II listed Bluntisham House, nine miles from Huntington is a beautiful former rectory with an interesting history.
Dorothy L Sayers, famous for writing detective fiction and who spent the final years of her life translating Dante?s Inferno, grew up at Bluntisham House. It is clear that the grandeur and elegance of the property had a profound effect on her since she mentions it in her book ?Cat O?Mary, the biography of a Prig? as well as in private manuscripts.
She refers to the dining room at Bluntisham as ?the finest room in the house?. It is indeed an impressive space with views out over the terrace and garden from three large mullioned windows. ?The exterior of one of these windows was framed in a handsome old pillared doorway, said to have been brought from Oliver Cromwell?s house at Huntingdon? she writes.
Sayers account is correct: when Oliver Cromwell?s house, Slepe Hall was pulled down, the Rector currently living in Bluntisham House bought one of the doorways and used it as a frame for the centre window. The present occupants have restored and renovated the house to a very high level, employing a renowned Italian painter to create a marble effect in the majestically paneled hallway.
Bluntisham House has four reception rooms downstairs and a substantial conservatory and heated indoor swimming pool. Upstairs there are seven bedrooms and an attic containing a sitting room and further two bedrooms. The house is surrounded by undulating farmland and stands in established gardens and grounds of approximately two acres.
For more information contact Mark Wood at Rooke, Wood and Miller, Cambridge (01223) 301616
