AS with the proverbial bus, you can wait forever for the right country house to come along and then three appear all at once. It bodes well for the market this summer that three exceptional houses— a Georgian masterpiece, a rare 17th-century manor and a whimsical Thames-side estate —have come to the market after generations in the hands of their devoted owners.
Described as ‘a sleeping beauty’ by selling agent Simon Backhouse, of Strutt & Parker in Canterbury (01227 451123), Grade II*-listed Ripple Court, three miles from the quaint coastal town of Deal, is rightly regarded as one of east Kent’s most important country houses. Owned by the same family for the past 60 years and ‘now in need of sensitive updating’, it stands in 8.6 acres of wonderfully private gardens and grounds, screened on three sides by a shelter-belt of mature woodland. The agents quote a guide price of £2.75 million.
Built between 1796 and 1802 on the site of an earlier, 16th-century Ripple Court for Col John Baker Sladen, the classic late-Georgian house was reputedly designed by Sir John Soane. Although no paper trail exists to this effect, its Historic England listing highlights the front façade and many details of the house and plan as being ‘reminiscent of Sir John Soane, normally the least copied of Neo-Classical architects’. Mr Backhouse also points to the distinctive central chimneystack as being ‘typically Soane’.
Denne historien er fra June 24, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 24, 2020-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.
