Smith Street, Elsworth, Cambridgeshire, CB23

WING OF A WONDERFUL, C17TH MANOR HOUSE, IN A MOST SOUGHT-AFTER CAMBRIDGE VILLAGE

A 3-bedroom, Grade II-listed wing of the Manor House in delightful Elsworth, a Cambridgeshire village blessed with many other gorgeous houses, as well as an abundance of amenities. Described as “of considerable beauty and historic interest”, the Manor House was built between 1656 and 1660 for Samuel Disbrowe, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland during the Interregnum. Five-bar wooden gates set between immaculately clipped yew hedging open at each end of a horseshoe driveway that sweeps round in front of the house and leads also to a garage for each of the four wings. Lovely gardens surround the house and look over towards the village cricket ground and pavilion - an archetypal English country setting for a wonderful English country home.

Choose between Cambridge and St Neots, just over 10 miles away, for fast trains to London in under 40 minutes. Elsworth is just 20 minutes from the university city of Cambridge, the heart of ‘Silicon Fen’, the global headquarters of Astra Zeneca and the home of The Perse School, one of the top-performing academic schools in the Country.

Kimbolton, 20 miles away, is another private school option. Yet you also have the outstanding Swavesey Village College for secondary education, just a short bus journey away, and both an outstanding pre-school as well as a lovely, little Primary a few hundred yards from the front door of your new home.

Wander with the children to school through the woods - where the medieval manor house stood - straight from the garden gate, perhaps coming home at the end of the day via the play park and across the sports field. What a bonus to have a great pub at each end of the village, a community shop and the glorious Grade I-listed Holy Trinity church where, for several years, Reverend Wilbert Audry said mass, spending his spare time writing his much-loved Thomas the Tank Engine books in the rectory.

Walk for miles with your dog in the beautiful surrounding countryside, and treat yourself at Frank’s Farm to breakfast, lunch or cake in the café, while picking up the Sunday joint, fresh veg., cheese, eggs, bread and a host of other provisions. It’s little wonder that Elsworth is so sought after.

MORE ABOUT THE PROPERTY 

As one of the most prominent houses in the village, with its painted brick beneath old-clay tiles, its symmetrical wings, distinctive chimneys, sash windows and exposed timber band, it’s impossible not to feel fortunate to call part of it your home. This is where Samuel Disbrowe and his wife, Rose, would have entertained high-status figures. Though he was a parliamentarian and the brother-in-law of Cromwell’s sister, he was granted a pardon by Charles II upon the restoration of the monarchy and allowed to live in peace at the Manor House.

With both Samuel and his son dying in 1690, the Manor House was inherited by Samuel’s granddaughter, Elizabeth, who later married into the Holworthy family. A century later, her great-grandson, Matthew, was inducted into the living and remodelled the house, which effectively became the rectory as well as the manor house.

In the 1930s the house was split into four lovely homes, today being the first opportunity for over four decades for anyone else to own the East Wing. It is now your choice as to whether to carry out further alterations to suit your lifestyle or keep it just as it is.

Climb the particularly wide main staircase to the galleried landing and to lovely first-floor bedrooms, one with a Victorian fireplace and wonderful, wooden shutters that still effortlessly close within the reveals of the tall sash windows. At the top of a narrower stair, the attic rooms - with their beamed and sloping ceilings and hardwood, double-glazed window - have variously been bedrooms, study and games room, but they could make a super, complete suite.

Will you keep the working kitchen tucked away or, subject to consent, open it to the dining room, beneath an old beam that could be exposed to mirror the beautiful beam in the solid oak-floored sitting room. Tall, corniced ceilings add to the feeling of space; the fireplaces – complete with what are, perhaps, their original marble surrounds - to winter cosiness.

Look forward to roaring log fires as you entertain friends for dinner or while slumping on the sofa in front of the television. And to summertime in the gardens, with their bird-filled walnut, weeping silver birch and sweet chestnut trees. Relax with coffee on your terrace amongst sweet-scented roses, perhaps catching the thwack of leather on willow from the cricket green next door. Delightfully peaceful.

AGENT NOTE - Leasehold / Share of Freehold Details 

Property owner becomes a freehold trustee with a 999-year lease from 1982 on the East Wing itself / Service charge (owner run): expected £1500 pa (including external repairs, buildings insurance and general maintenance).