NOTHING succeeds like success and, after a jittery start to the year, a handful of significant country-house sales was enough to turn the receding tide and tempt vendors and buyers alike back into the open market. In what turned out to be a surprisingly good year for ‘once-ina-lifetime’ houses, leading country-house agents were heartened by the level of demand at the top end of the market for well-restored historic houses in tranquil, private locations—many for sale for the first time in decades.
‘One interesting fact,’ notes Rupert Sweeting of Knight Frank, ‘is that, of country houses on our books at £5 million or more, 31% were sold to international buyers and 69% to buyers from the UK. It is certainly encouraging that international buyers—no doubt attracted by the weakness of sterling against the dollar and euro—still see the UK as a stable country in which to live and invest.’
The shiny private estates of north Surrey and south-east Berkshire are a mecca for international buyers, who usually match British money for the best houses in St Georges Hill, Wentworth, and Virginia Water. This year, however, UK buyers more than held their own in these exclusive enclaves and sales at upwards of £10m were not uncommon.
Knight Frank and Savills shared the honors in the sale in August of the imposing, 17,000sq ft Titlarks House on Titlarks Hill, Sunningdale, Berkshire, finding a British buyer at a guide price of £15m. Built as a joint venture between developers Kebbell Homes and Octagon, the luxurious red-brick house stands on a 1.4-acre plot and boasts a grand, 1,000sq ft entrance hall, seven reception rooms, and five dramatic bedroom suites.
Denne historien er fra December 25, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra December 25, 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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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.
