The Squire And The Rectors

Two Georgian-era properties, one created by a noted hound breeder, the other by a series of clergymen, make rare appearances on the market

THE launch onto the market—at a guide price of £8.5 million— of Grade I-listed Hinwick House on the Bedfordshire/Northamptonshire border has been the highlight of a wet and windy November for Crispin Holborow of Savills (020–7016 3780).

The recently renovated Queen Anne manor house, set in 37 acres of notable gardens, parkland, lakes and woodland, is for sale for only the third time in more than 300 years. It’s described in the first of three COUNTRY LIFE articles (September 22 and 29 and October 6, 1960) as ‘the ideal of an early 18th-century squire’s home’ and ‘among that category can be ranked as one of the very best, not only because it has been so little altered but on the strength of its architectural character’.

Although, technically, Hinwick House, in the village of Hinwick, is located in Bedfordshire, its ethos and history are more closely related to the ‘county of squires and spires’. It stands on the site of a Hinwick manor called Brayes Farm that was acquired by William Payne,a Bedfordshire dignitary and landowner, in 1617. All that remains of the 16th-century manor house are the three cottages attached to the 1710 clock tower, known collectively as Turret House.

When Payne died in 1624, his nephew, Richard Child, inherited his Bedfordshire estates; Child’s heir was his only daughter, Margaret, the wife of George Orlebar, scion of an old Northamptonshire family. In 1709, George’s great-grandson, Richard Orlebar, completed the purchase of Brayes Farm from his cousin, Elizabeth, on her coming-of-age. He set about building a grand new house for himself and his new wife, Diana.