CLIVE HOPKINS of Knight Frank’s farms and estates department is overseeing the simultaneous launch onto the market of two of the most picturesque country estates in the Chilterns: the 477-acre Burrow Farm estate, set in the Hambleden Valley, Buckinghamshire, and the 285-acre Beech Farm estate, near Woodcote in south Oxfordshire.
The sales follow the recent deaths of the both the estates’ former owners—David Palmer of Burrow Farm and Maj Sir David Black of Beech Farm—both of whom were champions of the countryside with a keen interest in local affairs, serving as High Sheriffs of their respective counties in 1993. Both were aged 92 when they died, Palmer in 2019, and Sir David in May of this year.
Born the son of an army officer in 1926, Palmer served with the Life Guards in Palestine, Egypt and Germany before leaving the army for a successful career as a broker, partner and eventual chairman of international insurers Willis Faber, which sprang to fame for having insured RMS Titanic. In 1978, Palmer and his wife, Millie, bought Burrow Farm, which has a fine, Grade II-listed manor house built over three periods, the earliest being the 16th-century Tudor wing to the west, which is connected to a 17th-century brick-and-flint extension and a later post-war wing.
Next to Burrow Farm House stands the impressive, Grade II-listed Chiltern barn, thought to date from the 15th century. A huge, 65ft-long entertaining space with a two-bedroom annexe at the far end, it has been the scene of many a memorable gathering during the Palmer family’s tenure.
Denne historien er fra July 21, 2021-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.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra July 21, 2021-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.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
