Penny Churchill takes a look at The Manor House, Blockley.
The Cotswolds was one area of the UK that more than held its own in 2024, due in no small measure to the return of American buyers, who remain captivated by its history, heritage and cosmopolitan lifestyle. All three are encapsulated in the picture-postcard stone village of Blockley, 3½ miles equidistant from Moreton-in-Marsh and Chipping Campden, a large part of which is designated a conservation area.
How nice is this place? Well, the village was voted ‘the best place to live in the South-West’ by The Sunday Times in 2017. That said, it doesn’t even seem to be in the regional top five any more, nor indeed anywhere among the 72 places that get a nod across Britain. We’re going to go out on a limb and say that’s probably more to do with the caprices and arbitrary criteria which tend to shape such lists, rather than a vertiginous decline. And if you’re prepared to overlook the risk that it is the latter, then there’s great news: a beautiful house in Blockley has just come up on to the market.
Plum Fenton of Savills country department is overseeing the sale, for the first time in 30 years, of historic, Grade II*-listed The Manor House at a guide price of £4.25m for the main house set in almost an acre of enchanting gardens. If a measly almost-an-acre, doesn’t sound enough, you can buy a further four-fifths of an acre of lower garden — which has potential for residential development — for a very-reasonable sounding £250,000.
The Manor House stands on what was the site of the medieval summer palace of the Bishops of Worcester until the Dissolution of the Monasteries and, today, forms part of the boundary to the village churchyard.
Remodelled in the 18th century, it retains many period features, including gabled projections, sash and mullioned windows and a Tudor-arch doorway, and enjoys breathtaking views over the surrounding Cotswolds National Landscape.
Lovingly maintained by its long-term owners, the house offers 7,385sq ft of comfortable accommodation on three floors.
There are five charming reception rooms, a large kitchen/breakfast room, three bedroom suites, two further bedrooms, family bath and shower rooms. Most intriguingly of all, there are five attic rooms, which makes the whole place sound like the sort of delightful, quirky and rambling country house we’d all love to have grown up in.
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