Ellerslie House at Gill?s Green, near Cranbrook, is said to have been built from the profits of smuggling during the reign of the ?Hawkhurst Gang?, whose leader, James Stanford, alias Tripp, amassed a huge fortune and was eventually convicted of murdering a customs officer in 1740.
The immaculate three-storey Georgian house has six reception rooms, eight bedrooms and four bath/shower rooms and stands in 10 acres of landscaped gardens and grounds, including a walled topiary garden, a cascade of ponds, a lake, and a Japanese water garden. Savills (01580 720161) quote a guide price of £2.65m.
This article first appeared in Country Life magazine on July 6, 2006
