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The rural property market has been booming, says Penny Churchill, as she looks at a small Cotswolds estate that s certain to stir up interest.
‘A year ago, we couldn’t have been more surprised to see the market for high-value country houses, farms and estates bounce back the way it did,’ says Clive Hopkins of Knight Frank, who called 2019 ‘a desperate year both politically and economically’.
The very top end of the market in particular has thrived, Clive adds, saying that, ‘farms, estates and country houses valued at more than £5m saw the strongest growth in the three months to December.
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Penny Churchill looks at Sconner House in Cornwall, where local agents have reported a booming market.
Down in Cornwall, Ian Lillicrap of Cornish agents Lillicrap Chilcott is celebrating his best trading year in more than two decades and berates the doom-mongers who had prophesied the collapse of the UK residential property market. ‘Of all our sales in 2020, we sold 40 homes priced between £1m and £5m,’ he says, ‘including one superlative water’s-edge icon, which sold, sight unseen, for between £4m and £5m after the first national lockdown.’
Mr Lillicrap is bullish about things continuing in a similar vein: ‘As we power into 2021, we expect strong demand for Cornwall’s finest houses in the £3m to £5m price bracket, due to a shortage of supply and the high level of demand from UK and overseas buyers.’ And currently on his books, at a guide price of £1.65m, is the impressive, Grade II-listed Sconner House at Polbathic, near Torpoin
Over 20 years since it was last sold, Penny Churchill looks at a home once owned by a scientist and champion chess player player that has come to the market.
The last time Loth Lorien at Wadhurst, East Sussex, appeared on my radar was in December 1999, when the striking Arts-and-Crafts house was being offered for sale by Hamptons on behalf of the eccentric 78-year-old American chessmaster, physicist and passionate gardener, Dan Mayers. Today, it’s for sale once more, a house set in 4¾ acres of woodland gardens and grounds a mile or so from Wadhurst station, with Savills quoting £2.85 million.
During Mr Mayers’ 40-year tenure, he created one of the world’s largest private collections of rare plants and trees in Loth Lorien’s 35 acres of grounds. ‘William Robinson gave you the Wild Garden. I give you the Wilderness Garden,’ he said at the time.
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A new-found love for space, quiet and Nature is driving growth in the prime countryside market, says Penny Churchill, as she takes a look at a superb house on the slopes of Leith Hill in Surrey.
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. As we try to look ahead to a time when the misery of the past nine months will be wiped from our collective memory, who would have thought that the big winner to emerge from the pandemic would be the British countryside? Whatever economic and social problems lie ahead, there is no doubt that many more homeowners will want to go where others led in 2020 and seek a cleaner, greener future without the grinding pressure of the dreaded daily commute.
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