Country houses for sale

OnTheMarket

A delightful 17th-century home in 'the best-preserved medieval village in England', for sale at under £500k

Quirky, charming and part of a village steeped in history, Byes Barn is a wonderful, recently renovated family home for a price that wont make your eyes water.

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(Image credit: Carter Jonas)

The charming, mostly medieval village of Lavenham is well known as the filming location for Harry Potter’s birthplace Godric’s Hollow and, although this is not the house visited by Voldemort that fateful night, it has plenty of magic, being the only barn conversion in the village and set beside a pretty stream.

Characterful, 17th-century and Grade II-listed, 1, Byes Barn is currently on the market via Carter Jonas at a guide price of £480,000.

(Image credit: Carter Jonas)

Exposed stud work features in many of the rooms, including in the dual aspect sitting room which is home to a handsome stone fireplace and has glorious views out over the stream and surrounding fields.

(Image credit: Carter Jonas)

Upstairs are two bedrooms, including the principal suite with ensuite shower room and an additional family bathroom.

However, that is not all. For lying underneath the ground floor is an expansive basement measuring 860 sq ft.

Ofcourse all the usual planning and box ticking would need to be approved, but the space adds a dynamic and exciting potential to the property and could be converted into further accommodation, a home office, cinema or gym.

(Image credit: Carter Jonas)

The gardens and off-street parking are separate from the property and just a short stones throw away, whilst plenty of walks through the surrounding countryside can be accessed from the doorstep.

(Image credit: Carter Jonas)

Byes Barn is currently on the market via Carter Jonas at a guide price of £480,000 — see more pictures, or enquire with the agent for further details. 

Lavenham: What you need to know

Location: 19 miles west of Ipswich and 11 miles south of Bury St Edmunds. Cambridge is also approximately 40 miles to the west. There are rail services from Colchester (18 miles south) providing Great Eastern Mainline services.

Atmosphere: The medieval town is known for its some 340 listed buildings. The village benefits from a number of shops, including a butchers, bakery, pharmacy and post office, plus numerous pubs, restaurants and galleries. The Swan Hotel is also home to an award-winning spa — The Weaver's Spa.

Things to do: Visit the National Trust's Lavenham Guild Hall and the Dedham Vale AONB as well as the Suffolk Coast and Healths AONB. There are countless walks in and around Lavenham, plus plenty of history to absorb.

Schools: Lavenham Community Primary School and Acton Church of England Voluntary controlled Primary School are both rated 'good' in Ofsted reviews. Old Buckenham Hall School is a local independent prep school and Thomas Gainsborough School is a secondary option.

See more property for sale in the area.


Credit: Strutt and Parker

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Annunciata Elwes

Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.