Perfect manors

For the first time in a generation, two of England’s most pristine and private residential and sporting estates, Corby Castle in Cumbria and Wilsford Manor in Wiltshire, have come to the open market

FOR sale through Savills (07967 555502) at a guide price of £15 million, historic, Grade I-listed Corby Castle stands at the heart of an immaculate, 711-acre estate bounded by the picturesque villages of Great Corby and Wetheral in Cumbria’s north-east corner, six miles from the border city of Carlisle. The majestic River Eden forms the western and southern boundary, with woodland to the north and east.

According to its Historic England listing, the Manor of Corby was granted to Hubert de Vallibus by Henry II and passed to Andrew de Harcia, Earl of Carlisle, before being given to Sir Richard Salkeld by Edward III in 1336. In 1605, Lord William Howard, third son of the 4th Duke of Norfolk, bought part of the Corby estate, followed by the remainder in 1624 for his second son, Francis. The estate remained in the Howard family until 1994, when it was acquired by the Ballyedmond family of Northern Ireland.

Built around the core of a medieval tower house, Corby Castle was remodelled for Henry Howard between 1812 and 1814 by the Scottish architect Peter Nicholson, who gave the building its present rectangular plan and neo-Classical façades. The imposing, 30,364sq ft house stands on high ground to the north of the estate, overlooking the banks and cliffs of the River Eden and surrounded by magnificent gardens and pleasure grounds, including a wildly romantic riverside Green Walk developed by Thomas Howard between 1709 and 1739.

The castle grounds, highlights of which include a spectacular cascade, a charming tempietto, grottos and sculptures, were much admired by Thomas’s fellow lovers of romantic landscapes, among them the watercolourist William Gilpin, writer Sir Walter Scott and the renowned Scottish garden designer John Claudius Loudon, who described them as ‘singularly grand and picturesque’.