Village Road, Bromham, Bedfordshire, MK43

WONDERFUL, 17TH CENTURY COTTAGE IN THE ‘COTSWOLDS OF BEDFORDSHIRE’

An impeccably maintained, Grade II-listed, 3-bedroom cottage, with gorgeous gardens, super workshop and, through a 5-bar wooden gate, gravelled parking for 3 cars. Opposite the former West Entrance Lodge to Bromham Hall and beautiful parkland, the delightfully named Lattice & Thatch and its attached neighbour were once six, early 17th century estate workers’ cottages belonging to the Hall, with a converted, clay-tiled and weatherboarded livestock barn joined to your new home as a fabulous sitting room. The cottage has been decorated inside and out with breathable paint, recently re-thatched with long-lasting water reed and the gutters replaced in cast iron. For as a special home it has been treated with the loving care it deserves.

Bromham is part of the cluster of North Bedfordshire, riverside villages recently dubbed by the Telegraph “the new Cotswolds”. And it’s less than 25 miles to Luton Airport, with the railway station at Bedford, from where fast trains reach London in 40 minutes, less than 3 miles away. A short bus journey takes the children to the county town’s world-renowned Harpur Trust private schools or the catchment secondaries in either nearby Biddenham or Lincroft in the adjoining village of Oakley, both rated ‘Good’ by Ofsted. As is the lovely little pre and primary school 500 yards from your front door.

It's not just the school that’s on the doorstep. The village is also home to a Scout and Guide Activity Centre, Co-op supermarket, surgery and pharmacy. The village hall and playing fields are just 350 yards along the road.

Pop across the road and straight into beautiful parkland, and wander through to the 13th century Church of St Owen or to the Georgian Swan Inn and, via the Nature Sanctuary or the delightful children’s Fairy Trail, to the Mill nestled on the banks of the River Great Ouse, where you can meet friends for delicious coffee and cakes, and where all kinds of events are put on by the friendly community.

And the village is surrounded by beautiful countryside walks for you and your dog. Lattice & Thatch is an inspirational home in an historic village full of family facilities. It’s quite a combination.

MORE ABOUT THE PROPERTY 

When Lattice & Thatch was sold by the Bromham Hall Estate in 1924 as “Three Capital Cottages”, the tenants were making do with earth closets, and the well, still there beneath the blossom of the neighbouring orchard. They would be amazed at the two bathrooms that you now have, one up one down, with a shower and a claw-foot bath respectively. Indeed, the downstairs bathroom makes it feasible to use the lovely, peaceful, oak-floored, reading room, with its electric, inglenook stove and door to outside, as a bedroom – if you ever need it for an elderly relative, after an op., or for guests, perhaps.

After all, you also have another snug, with its wonderful wall timbers, inglenook open fire and central beam where you must duck or grouse; as well as a heavily beamed and vaulted-ceilinged, oak-floored, family sitting room, with French doors through to the oak conservatory and back garden – rooms for all seasons; great for entertaining. And you have a lovely, in-frame, painted kitchen, with its oak-shelved pantry cupboard, beautiful granite, Belfast sink and superb, induction range. The island separates cooking from eating, slate floor from oak. Dine in front of the inglenook, with its cute little window and bread oven recess, and be thankful that even with every 21st-century comfort, the 17th-century character is undiminished.

Beautiful cast-iron radiators have been installed, yet the newly thatched reed roof still does its old job of keeping the cottage cool in summer and warm in winter. Expensive electrical fittings are perfectly in-keeping. Follow in the footsteps of generations of families through lovely, latched doors and up the amazing, 17th-century staircase, with its rope handrail, to wonderful, timbered and vaulted-ceilinged bedrooms, waking up to views of the gardens.

Described as “Good Gardens” in the sale particulars a hundred years ago, the word today would have to be “gorgeous”. Full of wit and whimsy, French metal panniers, a milk churn and charming characters are perfectly at home amongst beautiful planting. Trees, old and young, burst with blossom and birdsong. Bees buzz amongst beds of lavender, alliums, peonies, and distinctive hellebores. Roses and unusual, delicate clematis vie for attention with wonderfully scented mock orange, magnificent magnolia and vibrantly coloured ceanothus. And watched over by the French cockerel high on the thatch ridge, you have sitting areas all around the cottage to enjoy it all – from morning coffee near the kitchen to evening glass of wine at the back, as the sun follows. Cottage and gardens that are a complete delight.