Moorhead Farmhouse, Russels Lane, Tatham, Lancaster, LA2 8PQ

Moorhead Farmhouse offers a generous entrance vestibule, a room in itself, separate sitting and dining rooms, a classic farmhouse living kitchen, separate utility room, office, cloakroom and vaulted cellar. The principal bedroom has an ensuite shower room, there are two further first floor bedrooms and a house bathroom. On the second floor is a fourth bedroom and a good sized store room. 

This is a great choice if you are looking for an outdoor lifestyle with an utterly delightful and well-stocked garden which wraps around the house, extensive parking and a field offering great amenity value. The total acreage is approximately 0.58 acres, the field forming 0.27 acres of this. Outside is a generous detached double garage with room for a workshop area, a captivating summer house, dinky greenhouse and practical shed and log store. 

Embracing its rural setting, this is a location for those that seek peace and quiet in their everyday and appreciate country ways but still wish to be accessible for road and rail links and amenities in local villages and towns. Not so much a house as a lifestyle, Moorhead Farmhouse has a great deal to offer.  

Vendor insight

All those years ago we were looking for a characterful home that was both rurally situated and also accessible, something that would suit our growing family. We’ve loved life here, but our children have grown and flown and it’s now time for us to downsize and let another family enjoy all that we have. 

There are views from every room in the house and from every part of the garden, so we are very aware of the seasons changing around us and as a result feel very connected with our surroundings, nature and wildlife. We especially love lambing time, the new lambs are such a welcome sight in spring.  

There is a comfort in knowing that there are other people around both in the next door barn conversion and at the farm across the field, so whilst we have a neighbour the positioning of the two houses and our respective gardens means that we are never really aware that they are there, we’re certainly not overlooked at all and we’ve never had to worry about the noise levels of our children and their friends playing in the garden when they were younger. 

Location

One of the English countryside’s unspoilt gems, the Lune Valley begins just a few minutes’ drive from Lancaster and borders both the Forest of Bowland AONB and the national park of the Yorkshire Dales. 

With a backdrop of green and gently undulating fells, at the heart of which is the meandering river, the Lune Valley has long been a sought-after place to live; thriving local communities have taken root in picturesque village and hamlets with a great choice of destination country pubs which are well regarded outside of the local area. 

Whilst not in a village itself, Moorhead Farmhouse enjoys a location that benefits from local services in Wray, Hornby and Bentham with a wider selection available in the Cumbrian market town of Kirkby Lonsdale and more still to be found in the busy city of Lancaster.  

Rural it may be, isolated it is not – the station at Wennington is a tremendous asset. It’s on the Bentham Line which runs between Leeds and Morecambe via Skipton so from there you can catch trains into Lancaster (great for giving teenagers a degree of independence) or venture into Leeds for a day’s shopping. 

This is a wonderful place to live if you value the peace and quiet of a country lifestyle, but equally rate excellent road and rail accessibility to maintain business and social connections.

Vendor insight

We think of Wray as our local village – the village shop has recently been taken over by the community and has been updated – it sells all sorts and is really handy. Wray’s got some tea rooms and a pub which we can walk to and there’s the annual Scarecrow Festival over the May bank holiday which is worth visiting. 

Step inside 

This is a quintessential farmhouse with layers of history, masses of personality and rich in architectural details. Sensitively and gently upgraded over the decades, it is a relaxed and welcoming house, incredibly inviting and wholeheartedly embracing. 

There are plenty of beamed ceilings, exposed window lintels and roofing timbers, deep windows sills, window seats, walls of exposed stonework (some with a painted finish), floors of flag, slate and stone, mullion windows and pine boarded doors. If you appreciate character, then you’ll love the details here.  

The weighty front door is approached through the ivy clad porch and opens into the entrance vestibule; a room in itself. Moving through and there’s a door with stone steps leading down to a cellar room – if you’ve ever fancied owning a vaulted wine cellar, now is your chance! A super space for additional pantry storage and with power it can also accommodate a drinks fridge and separate freezer. The main sitting room is a delightful, really well-proportioned room with a multi fuel stove, a host of recessed niches and the original front door leading through a smaller vestibule out to the garden. There’s a separate dining room, it too has a wood burning stove, incredibly atmospheric it looks the perfect setting for family Sunday lunches and candle lit supper parties with friends. The farmhouse kitchen is everything you could wish for – cook, eat, relax, repeat. The Aga draws you forward for prerequisite hand warming, multi-functional for cooking, toasting, boiling the kettle, warming the plates, airing the ironing, drying wet trainers …. you name it!  Family and pets will all gravitate towards it. You may need to fight them off if tea is to get cooked on time. For a classic country look, bespoke joiner made cabinets are painted and topped with stone worktops. 

A door opens to the former granary, long since converted the building now provides a practical utility room and downstairs cloakroom with a home office above approached via a staircase.

Rising to the first floor and off the landing the main bedroom has both fitted wardrobes and an ensuite with a shower, wash basin and loo. Lying in bed there’s a glorious view to wake up to, a morning cup of tea here must really set you up for the day. The second double has an equally good view and a fitted wardrobe, the third bedroom on this floor is a small double . Both share the house bathroom which has a super free standing slipper bath, a large shower cubicle, contemporary twin wash basins and a loo. The vanity mirror, towel rail and floor are all heated to bring a touch of luxury to your every day. 

The stairs continue up to the second floor – watch your head on the purlins and stop for a moment to examine the glazed panel behind which is an exposed section of the original walling materials – an interesting slice of history. The loft bedroom and adjoining store room (a possible ensuite?) are the perfect retreat for teenagers but would also create a super principal suite. 

It can’t be stressed enough how fabulous the views are from the house – panoramic and reaching far into the distance there is much to behold beyond the garden walls – the vibrancy of spring leaves, the glow and range of colours in autumn and the magical sight of a blanket of newly fallen snow.  With not a street light in sight, there will also be wonderful dark, starry nights. 

Vendor insight

The dining room is great for a party or special occasion dinner, otherwise we tend to eat and entertain in the kitchen, it’s always warm thanks to the Aga and always feels so homely. The sitting room is lovely and cosy, especially when the stove is lit during winter. We have thoroughly enjoyed welcoming family and friends to the house and have celebrated many family milestones here – 21st and 30th birthdays, one of our daughters got married from the house and thanks to our neighbour, we held the reception in teepees in the field next door. 

It’s been great having a dedicated home office, with the hatch open you’re connected to the rest of the house but if need be, we can shut ourselves away and enjoy uninterrupted peace. 

At Christmas time we put a tree in the dining room as it can be seen from the kitchen, every room downstairs is decorated, the whole place looking wonderfully festive. 

Step outside

Pull in off the road and the drive up to the former farmhouse has timeless rustic appeal, trees line your way and in spring the verges are full of frothy cow parsley. 

There’s gated access to a generous sandstone flagged parking area behind the garage, but it’s also possible to park in front of the garages and opposite them, tucked in, on the lane as well. 

The double garage has two sets of wooden doors for vehicular access and a door at the back for when you’re parked up and heading back inside. With power and light, it’s a generous size with space at the back for a permanent workshop set up. There’s also useful mezzanine storage in the pitched roof space. 

From the parking area, older flags form a path and lead around the house. Six stones steps lead up past a well-stocked and neatly tended rockery to a lawn. It’s in this top garden that you’ll find the summer house – it’s an absolute delight. The immediate outlook is over the garden, but the wider views are tremendous. A white grape vine flourishes here as it’s a sunny and sheltered spot and is the perfect place for being outside, but when the weather is perhaps not as warm or there’s a breeze. A peaceful place for a catching your thoughts, enjoying a book, or enjoying lunch, supper or just drinks with friends – candle lit it must look absolutely magical. There is power here so you could even have a kettle or drinks fridge on site.  

Outside the summer house the garden has a more naturalistic style with grass left to grow longer and paths mown through.  There are Bramley apple and damson trees, a small pond with a fountain and a useful garden shed. 

Continuing our garden tour, you’ll notice that seating areas are set up all over so that whatever the time of day or the occasion, there is always somewhere ready. The views vary from each setting, all offering a slightly different aspect. The south facing L shaped paved terrace nestled between the kitchen and the utility is an absolute sun trap and perfect for an outdoor breakfast. A couple of steps lead down to a lawn with planted borders. Unfolding as the garden continues, it is set out in distinct areas or ‘rooms’ and is colourful all year round – each season bringing new colour or points of interest to be appreciated. 

The greenhouse has been imaginatively remodeled from a former outside privy and is situated next to the walled vegetable garden. Rhubarb, wild garlic and fennel grow in beds with gooseberry, red and black currant bushes. Facing south and east is a further seating area, the family have a chiminea and barbecue set up here and have found this to be the perfect spot for relaxed afternoons and leisurely evenings set against a soundtrack of bird song and sheep in the field next door.  

The front garden offers plum and apple trees, both cookers and eaters. Stone walls border the front field as the path leads round the front of the house to the parking area, completing your tour. 

Across the drive, the field is ideal if you fancy keeping chickens or geese, a few sheep or maybe develop a kitchen garden (there are already some raised beds in the lower section) or simply have the space to let the dogs run around and young children play. 

Part of the field has now been fenced and hedged and is enjoyed as an informal garden – perfect for summer picnics, it offers a change of scene. The owners tell us that is it “a nice place to come and sit and play with the children. We’ve put a tent up and let them camp down here, we’ve barbecued here and as it catches the evening sun, it’s a lovely spot for a drink.”

Vendor insight

Before retiring and due to work commitments, we needed a garden that was easy to keep on top of. The beds are now all well covered so it doesn’t take much weeding. We leave the grass longer in the top garden by the summer house, it’s lovely to see the wildflowers coming through and it really attracts the wildlife too. We have lots of bird feeders and boxes around the garden and are rewarded by a wide variety of visiting birds including a family of woodpeckers. 

We’ve designed the garden to have a choice of seating areas so as the sun moves round the house there’s always somewhere to sit. The summer house has been well used – whatever the weather; it’s so peaceful there and a lovely place to read the weekend papers with a pot of coffee.  

Services

Mains electricity and water. Oil fired central heating from a Grant boiler in the utility room. Electric underfloor heating in the house bathroom. 

Drainage to a septic tank located in the adjacent field to the south of the garden. 

Broadband

Full fibre gigabit broadband provided by B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North) B4RN customers receive gigabit (1,000Mbps) speed.

Mobile

Indoor: EE and O2 are ‘likely’ to have a Voice service, Three and Vodaphone report ‘limited’ Voice service. All networks report ‘limited’ Data service except for Vodaphone who do not offer a Data service. 

Outdoor: EE, Three, O2 and Vodaphone are all reported as ‘likely’ for Voice and Data services. 

Broadband and mobile information provided by Ofcom.

Included in the sale 

Fitted carpets, curtains, curtain poles, blinds, light fittings and integral kitchen appliances (Aga, Bosch electric double oven and hob). The free-standing appliances (Bosch fridge, freezer and washing machine and the Miele dishwasher) may be available by way of further negotiation. 

The front door curtain is specifically excluded. 

Please note

The drive from the public highway is believed to be part owned with the neighbouring farm with shared upkeep responsibility. 

A public footpath crosses the rear garden. 

Directions 

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Use Sat Nav LA2 8PQ with reference to the directions below:

You can approach the house from several directions. 

Coming from Lancaster or the M6 (exit at J34), head up the Lune Valley on the A683. Pass through the villages of Caton and Claughton (with the Fenwick Arms on the left) and then take the B6480 signposted Wray/Wennington. Procced into Wray village and turn right onto Main Street. Drive out of the village, passing the tea rooms (on the left) and over the River Hindburn. Continue, pass the junction with Trinket Lane on the left and continue up the hill as it becomes Russells Lane. Keep an eye to the left, Moorhead Farmhouse is set back off the lane. Should you find yourself on a left hand bend with a working farm on your right, you’ve just missed it, turn round and take the first drive on the right.