Penny Churchill takes a look at the historic and charming Ivythorn Manor.
The historic, Grade II*-listed Ivythorn Manor is a handsome medieval monastic house set in just under 16 acres of gardens, grounds, parkland and woodland, 1½ miles south of Street, probably best known as the home of Millfield School, and 3½ miles south of Glastonbury.
The manor house offers 8,126sq ft of atmospheric living space on two floors, including a reception hall, four reception rooms, a snug, kitchen, vast principal bedroom suite overlooking the south garden, six further bedrooms and three bathrooms. James Toogood of Savills quotes a guide price of £2.95m.
Attached to the main house on the north side is the three-bedroom Ivythorn Cottage, which needs modernisation.
To the south-west of the main house is a detached, two-storey, castellated tower building, a former garage that has been altered to form a garden room and changing area for the adjoining swimming pool.
To the east is a detached 16th-century dovecote, currently used for storage.
According to its Historic England listing, the manor was rebuilt in 1488 for Abbot Selwood of Glastonbury Abbey, before passing to the Marshall and Sydenham families after the Dissolution. In 1834, the house was partly ruinous, but was restored in about 1904, with the addition, in 1938, of the two-storey west wing, which, ‘although relatively modern and much altered is included [in the listing] because, with its 15th-century moulded beams and original fireplace openings, it completes the ensemble’.
Acquired by the vendor’s parents in the 1970s and meticulously renovated over the years, Ivythorn Manor stands next to National Trust-owned woodland, halfway up a slope overlooking the Somerset Levels. Built on an irregular L-plan of coursed and squared rubble under a Roman tiled roof, the house boasts many period features, including ancient timbers and inglenook fireplaces, decorative timbered and plastered ceilings and period timber joinery; of particular interest is the oak front door, above which is a tablet carved with the arms of Abbot Selwood.
For sale via Savills — request more details here.
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