'One of Wiltshire’s most historic houses' is on the market, a 500-year-old home on an 1,100-year-old estate

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Penny Churchill looks a the the delightful Baverstock Manor, in an idyllic village near Salisbury.

Camilla Elwell of Savills country department is overseeing the sale, at a guide price of £4.25m, of one of Wiltshire’s most delightful historic manor houses, the Grade II*-listed Baverstock Manor, which sits in 18 acres of gardens, grounds and paddocks in the tiny hamlet of Baverstock, a mile east of the village of Dinton and seven miles west of Salisbury, within the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs AONB.

Local records reveal that, in 968, King Edgar of Mercia donated 300 acres of land at Baverstock to nearby Wilton Abbey. The original house at Baverstock was built in the 1500s by the Abbess of Wilton as a retreat house, which later became the Manor.

It stands on the site of the medieval Mary’s Well, a holy well reputed to cure diseases of the eye that attracted many pilgrims to Baverstock. The well was fed by three springs, two under the house and one across the lane, which overflowed into the winterbourne east of the house and thence to the River Nadder, as they do to this day.

According to its listing, the picturesque Tudor house, built mainly of dressed sandstone under a tiled roof, was significantly enlarged in the 17th century, when it passed to the Penruddocke family of Compton Chamberlayne, and was restored by Mrs Benett-Stanford of nearby Pythouse in the 1930s.

It retains a wealth of period features, including stone mullioned windows and handsome stone fireplaces.

Owned by the same family for the past 80-odd years, and now in need of updating, Baverstock Manor offers some 6,000sq ft of accommodation on two main floors, including an entrance hall, four reception rooms, a study, studio, flower room and kitchen/breakfast room on the ground floor.

There is a large principal bedroom suite, eight further bedrooms and three bathrooms on the first floor. Included in the sale are a pretty, three-bedroom stone cottage, stone outbuildings, a stable yard and barn and amenities including a swimming pool and tennis court.