Prime properties in the Surrey Hills AONB are worth waiting for
WE’RE still seeing UK money in the countryside around here,’ reports Clive Moon of Savills in Guildford, who has seen contracts exchanged on one of Surrey’s most enviable village houses: the elegant, Grade II-listed Glebe House, with five acres of land at Chiddingfold, in the Surrey Hills AONB. The house sold in competitive bidding for more than its revised guide price of £5.85 million, although less than the original asking price of ‘excess £6.5 million’ quoted at its launch in 2018 (COUNTRY LIFE, May 9, 2018). The buyers were a young family with children destined for one of the area’s many outstanding schools.
‘Although price is clearly a major issue in these uncertain times, buyers—especially families with children of school age —can’t wait forever,’ Mr Moon says, adding, ‘given that they may only live there for about 10 years while the children are at school, such buyers don’t want to waste time renting.’
That said, vendors of even the finest country houses face the prospect of a long wait to find a buyer, unless their pricing reflects the reality of life in today’s slow lane. Brexit isn’t the only spanner in the works; today’s buyers are easily spooked and local issues, such as planning, can also give cause for concern.
Savills (01483 796800) and The Grantley Group (01483 407628) are joint agents in the sale of one of Surrey’s most charming small estates, Barnfield at Dunsfold, near Cranleigh, 12 miles from Guildford, which is currently on the market for £5m—a price that reflects the uncertainty caused by a planning application for new housing on a former wartime airfield on the other side of Dunsfold.
Denne historien er fra March 06, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra March 06, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning