High Street, Irchester, Northamptonshire, NN29

BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY HOUSE, WITH 3.5 ACRES, GARDENS AND EQUESTRIAN FACILITIES – AND ADDITIONAL COTTAGE

A fine, Grade II-listed former rectory, with stables, manège and paddocks which currently earn an income. A separate one-bedroom barn conversion could equally be let, either long term or on the holiday market. With five double bedrooms in the main house, AGA kitchen, walled gardens and extensive parking and garaging, the Manor House has over 5000 ft2 of space and 3.5 acres of land in total. Dating to the 14th century, it stands next to St Katherine’s Church in the Northamptonshire village of Irchester and is at once an historical gem and a wonderful family home.

Irchester itself is a village steeped in history, from dinosaurs roaming the area 170 million years ago (a footprint fossil has been found at Irchester Country Park) to Chester Farm, the site of a small Roman town, its preceding Iron Age settlement, and the medieval hamlet of Chester on the Water. There are no less than 17 listed buildings in the High Street alone, including The Manor House.

Despite the village’s rural setting, travelling is made easy, with the A45, A6 and A509 within minutes of your new home, allowing fast access to the A14 and M1, and to Cambridge, Luton Airport and Milton Keynes. Wellingborough Railway Station, with its fast trains to London in 45 minutes, is just 3.5 miles away.

Highly regarded private schools are in Wellingborough (4 miles), Kimbolton (13 miles) and Oundle (17 miles). The catchment primary is in the village and the secondary, 2 miles away in Wollaston, both recently rated ‘Good’ by Ofsted.

Rushden Lakes Shopping Centre is just three miles away, along with the nearby Waitrose supermarket. Irchester itself has its own Co-op, Village Stores, surgery, pub and takeaways, not to mention Community Hall, playing fields and well-stocked library.

As well as lovely walks in the surrounding countryside, you can wander through your private gate in the old stone garden wall into the churchyard and on to the Country Park, where ironstone was once quarried and where you can walk with your dog, or cycle, through 200 acres of woodland. An exciting adventure course is a magnet for children and on the doorstep for those fortunate enough to grow up at the Manor House.

HISTORY

It’s quite an achievement to join the surprisingly few who are quoted in books about historic Irchester as having owned the Manor House. Built in the 1300s, of similar age to St Katherine’s Church (quite some next-door neighbour), for many years the house was in the hands of Overstone Estates as a tenanted farm, tenants including the 25-stone Miller, Tommy Turnell, who had a road named after him and who was a warden of the Grade I-listed church.

Called the Old Rectory House until the early C19th the Manor House is thought to have housed monks until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536. It’s likely that it was the Rectory until the 1700s. The house was later owned by James Pain, whose company ran the ironworks in Irchester, the area being rich in iron ore (it’s little wonder that ironstone as well as limestone was used in the construction of the house), and then by British Steel. It’s only during the past half a century that it’s been lived in by private owners.

The house has naturally seen many changes over 700 years, and was much altered in the mid-18th century, the front being rendered to hide pre-Georgian lintels, which was less of a priority at the back. It was formerly a hall house, which centred around a huge hall with open hearth, smoke being drawn up to the roof. You can see that a large ogee-headed window on the wall closest to the church (commented on by Nikolaus Pevsner) was blocked up when the internal floor was inserted. The little fire window on the same wall would have once been within a huge fireplace built to allow smoke to disperse more efficiently.

Many alterations, yes, yet now it’s not only exciting how much of great age is retained, but what a fabulous family home the Manor House has become.

MORE ABOUT THE PROPERTY

You can walk along the High Street without ever realising that beyond the gate in the middle of the tall yew hedging is such an impressive house and a front garden little changed in layout for over a hundred years – though it’s relatively recently that the fairies took over the corner beneath the lilac.

You can thank Edward Parsons (of pork pie fame) for building the lovely verandah in 1910 and the Victorians for the bell pull and the beautiful Minton tiles in the hall, where once stone flags might have lain like those beneath the wonderfully wide, early C19th staircase.

A beautiful Tudor beam spans the house, passing through the lovely sitting room, with its log burner and natural light pouring through tall sliding sash windows in the bay, and on through one of the nicest cloakrooms you’ll come across, which like the bathrooms throughout, is fitted with a gorgeous Burlington suite. The AGA kitchen, too, stretches from shuttered bay at the front to wonderful stained-glass window in the 4-foot-thick stone wall at the back.

As you’d expect of a house of some status and history, all the rooms have oodles of space, height and character, not least the beautiful bedrooms, some with gorgeous, wide oak floorboards, each with lovely views, especially those on the top floor, once the Parsons’ maid’s quarters – albeit not quite so luxurious then.

So much space for everyone to be together, to call your own, and to entertain. A wealth of outbuildings that can be anything you want them to be – garaging, stores, workshop, gym, games room, perhaps. Superb equestrian facilities, including the two paddocks, for your own horses or to hire out as they are currently. A separate barn conversion, with magnificent, beamed and vaulted ceiling, from which you can also earn an income, if you wish.

And a wonderful, private, walled garden where once there was a grass tennis court and where now budding footballers can hone their skills. Children can climb the hazelnut tree and pick their own plums, apples and pears, while you tend the borders, or relax or barbecue on the lavender-lined terrace. The Manor House has a special history, but it’s first and foremost a special family home.