THE camellias are already blooming in the West Country, where the coming weeks will see the launch onto the market, for the first time in a generation, of some of the region’s lesser-known, but most appealing, country houses.
One of the most enchanting is secluded, Grade II-listed The Manor House at Glanvilles Wootton, which stands in some 88 acres of lush parkland and pasture, gardens and woodland to the east of the village, seven miles south of Sherborne and 12 miles north of Dorchester in the heart of Dorset’s Hardy Country.
For sale for the first time since 1985— at a guide price of £4.75 million through Strutt & Parker (020–7629 7282) and Symonds & Sampson (01305 261008)—the exquisitely symmetrical Georgian manor house, which incorporates an earlier 17thcentury house, has been restored, redecorated and improved by its present owners during their 35-year tenure.
Set in an area renowned for growing timber, notably oak and elm, the quiet village of Glanvilles Wootton—the name of which derives from the ‘wooded place’ mentioned in Domesday and that of the de Glannvyl family who held the manor in medieval times—has long been the centre of a prosperous farming community. To the north and east is the dairy farming country of the Blackmore Vale and, to the west, open chalk downland, with Dorset’s famous Jurassic Coast some 20 miles away. No ‘pigs, planes or pylons’ mar the landscape in these parts.
The original 17th-century section of The Manor House was probably built by George Williams, scion of a Welsh landowning family that was long established in mid Dorset, In 1616, he inherited lands at Glanvilles Wootton and neighbouring Mynterne that he had previously leased from his father, Sir John Williams of Hersingston.
Denne historien er fra March 11, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra March 11, 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.
