There was no garden to speak of then, other than a 12ft-wide concrete rill that ran from the front of the house down to the lake. The 1810 house was surrounded by mature leylandii and the original 1,100-acre estate had long since been broken up, leaving 11 acres of land, which included the lake, then full of weeds and silted up. Leylandii obscured the principal view from the drawing-room to the water and the hill that rises beyond it; the old walled garden was being used as a donkey paddock. The two small cottages in the grounds were derelict, the outdoor pool was poorly sited, as was the tennis court, and the house itself was in much need of help.
The village of Priors Marston contains several substantial houses, having profited from being a staging post on the Welsh Road, the old drovers’ route from Wales to Northampton, but the manor is the foremost, standing back from the road at the main village junction.
This story is from the June 16, 2021 edition of Country Life UK.
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This story is from the June 16, 2021 edition of Country Life UK.
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