362 acres of beautifully-unspoilt Brecon Beacons countryside is for sale as The Mandinam Estate comes to the market. Penny Churchill takes a look.
The gloriously scenic Mandinam estate at Llangadog, near Llandovery, the name of which means ‘place without blemish’, lives up to its billing in every way. Seen from any angle, the views are spectacular — no doubt one of the reasons why The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall chose this part of the Principality for their eco-friendly retreat at Llwynywermod, three miles to the north-east as the crow flies.
For sale through Knight Frank, Tustins in Oxford and Llewellyn Humphreys in Carmarthen at a guide price of £2.75m for the whole, the unspoilt 362-acre Mandinam Estate on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park has been sympathetically farmed and nurtured for the past 50 years by dedicated owners, who have now reached retirement age.
Now, they’re looking for a new owner to take on this special place, be it as a family home, a sanctuary, a working farm, a business opportunity or, as it has been for them, a combination of all four.
At the high point of the estate, sheltered by belts of broadleaf woodland, is Grade II-listed Mandinam House, a handsome, double-pile country house of the late 17th or early 18th century.
The house was first mentioned in 1660, when its owner, G. Gwynne of Llanelwedd, Radnorshire, gave it to the theologian and writer Jeremy Taylor, who is said to have been with Charles I when he was executed. In 1710, the estate was sold to the Lloyd family of Wern Newydd and Glansevin, in whose hands it remained until the latter half of the 20th century.
Although now in need of modernisation, Mandinam House provides an excellent range of well-proportioned rooms, including a reception hall, four reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, six bedrooms and a family bathroom.
Other useful buildings include a stone-built coach house, a guest cottage, a four-bedroom farmhouse and an untouched, Grade II*-listed long house.
Further income potential is supported by a range of modern farm buildings and four traditional shepherd’s huts dotted in idyllic locations around the estate.
When the present owners first took over the estate, they farmed it commercially for several decades, making full use of the sheep walks and common land grazing rights in the western half of the national park to run a herd of 100 cattle and more than 1,000 breeding ewes. Yet never was Nature sacrificed for productivity and today there are more hedges and native trees planted on the estate than when he and his young family arrived in 1970.
The Mandinam Estate is for sale at £2.75m — see more details and pictures.
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