Manors For all Seasons

published 20 January 2006

Spring and summer are the traditional selling seasons in the country house market, but that perceived wisdom was turned on its head in 2005, with nothing much happening until September, when all hell broke loose. Now, country properties which would not normally see the light of day before April or May are being launched on the market in January, presumably on the basis that, these days, a decent house will sell at any old time of year.

Tregoid Manor at St Kew, north Cornwall, is one of those special properties, says Jonathan Cunliffe of Savills? new Bodmin office (01208 264411), for whom the 17th-century manor house, listed Grade II, is ?one of only a dozen houses of similar calibre? within six miles of Rock, on Cornwall?s new ?gold coast?.

The earliest mention of Tregoid comes in a diary of St Kew parish written by Sir John Maclean in 1874, according to which ?John de Tregoid bought land in the parish during 1263?. In 1350, Tregoid was bought by the Treffry family, who kept it until 1648, when it was sold to the Robartes of Lanhydrock; they built the house, farmyard and buildings, and kept the farm tenanted until it was sold to Stephen Dunstan in 1912. In 1954, Dunstan sold the manor to Ernest Chapman, and the present owners bought it from him on their return from Australia in 1985.

During their 20-year tenure, they have greatly improved the house, which has a large reception hall, a drawing room, a sitting room, a kitchen/dining room, a conservatory, a billiard room, five further bedrooms and a family bathroom. A cobbled courtyard leads to a two-bedroom cottage, stabling, and various outbuildings. The timeless Cornish manor house, set in 14 acres of gardens, paddocks and woodland, is on the market for only the sixth time in its history, at a guide price of £1.3 million.

This article was published in Country Life magazine, January 19, 2005

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