Ask the average young family what sort of thing they’d hope to find when swapping town for country, and you’ll more than likely get a checklist which makes it sounds like they want to live in Camberwick Green: local shop, decent pubs, pretty old church, a family-run butcher, charming houses and a thriving little village hall, all arranged around an idyllic village green.
As it happens that’s more or less a spot-on description of the Surrey village of Brockham, on the outskirst of which you’ll find the five-bedroom, Grade II-listed Tumbledown Farm for sale at £2.495 million.
The house dates to the 1600s with many fine period features, such as exposed timber beams and a magnificent inglenook fireplace in the drawing room.
The owners have added a light-filled, oak-frame family room with a high, vaulted ceiling overlooking the garden, which extends to about 1¾ acres.
A long, single-storey annexe has been created out of old post-war-era stables, which is accessed from a secondary drive. It has two bedrooms, a kitchen/sitting room, home office and workshop with store rooms.
The workshop offers scope for doing more here: a home for extended family or an office, music room or work studios.
As for entertainment options nearby? Well, in addition to the pubs the village hall hosts film screenings and fairs. Going further afield, Brockham lies 1½ miles east of busy little market town of Dorking, whose station has regular direct services to London Waterloo that take about an hour.
In this part of the Surrey Hills you’ll also find Box Hill, a popular spot with masochists looking for a place to punish themselves by running or cycling to the top of a notoriously steep hill. Not for nothing were the roads to the summit chosen to host the cycling road race during the London 2012 Olympics.
As if all that weren’t enough, once a year life in the Brockham really goes off with a bang — quite literally. The annual bonfire celebrations are legendary, and thought to be among the largest in the country.
Tumbledown Farm is for sale with Jackson-Stops in Dorking at £2.495m — see more details and pictures.
Credit: Strutt and Parker
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