High Street, Elstow, Bedfordshire, MK42

EXCEPTIONAL FORMER COACHING INN, WITH STUDIO WORKSHOP AND SCOPE FOR ANNEXE – IN HISTORIC VILLAGE ON EDGE OF COUNTY TOWN

A remarkable transformation from a late-16th Century inn to a wonderful, Grade II-listed, 21st century, detached family home in the quiet backwater of Elstow, the birthplace of John Bunyan. With 4 or 5 bedrooms, and nearly 3500 sq. ft. of breathtakingly beautiful, timbered space, there is even scope to create an income-earning annexe from the double garage, or a larger family annexe within the house in what is currently a superb studio workshop. The delightfully planted garden has been supplemented by an adjoining, quarter-of-an-acre, rented field, the lease for which could possibly be transferred. Converted in 2012 and recently updated and upgraded, not least with a beautiful kitchen, Swan House is rather special.

Glance at the map adorning the cloakroom wall in this wonderful old house and you see that the village was once called Elvestow; though the historic buildings suggest that much else remains as it was. You could be forgiven for forgetting that you are just a short cycle ride or bus journey from Bedford station, from where fast trains reach London in 40 minutes. Children can walk or hop on a bus to the world-renowned Harpur Trust private schools, or to the outstanding Free School.

It’s just 5 minutes in the car from your gravelled drive to the Interchange Retail Park. Yet, in Elstow itself, you have a village shop and post office, a lovely little coffee shop, an 18th century pub and the St Helena fine dining restaurant, not to mention a super primary school, a surgery, playing fields and parkland, as well as a community picnic spot beside Elstow Brook.

The nearby A6 and A421 provide quick and easy access for the motorist to Luton airport, just 20 miles away - a bus also runs directly to the airport from the village -and to Cambridge, Milton Keynes and further afield; yet avid dog walkers could hardly wish for more, with the John Bunyan trail passing through the village and lovely countryside close by.

Moreover, the village will be only about 3 miles away from the planned Universal Studio resort and the new Wixams station, which will send fast trains between Oxford and Cambridge, to London, and even to Europe, if the vision is realised. So easy to travel from, but what a place to come home to.

MORE ABOUT THE PROPERTY 

Your new home has been the subject of many a postcard. Looking at Swan House, with its jettied second storey, beautiful oak timbers and herringbone brickwork infill, and its glorious old clay-tiled rooflines, you can see why. Yet the surroundings make the heart leap, too.

A row of 13th to 17th century cottages opposite are listed Grade I, II and II*. A few steps around the corner, the C15th Moot Hall, built as a market hall for the Benedictine Nunnery, Elstow Abbey, stands on the village green where John Bunyan spent many an hour as a boy playing ‘Tip-cat’. Extraordinary fairs held there to raise money for the Abbey were Bunyan’s inspiration for the “Vanity Fair” in his “Pilgrims Progress.” Bunyan was baptised in the Abbey church, part of which is now the Parish Church of St Mary and St Helena.

Swan House seems to have started life as a cottage, but by 1625 it had become a hostelry called the Star, changing its name to the Swan within a hundred years. It’s fascinating to think of generations of travellers and locals who have rested their heads or whiled away their time in your new home. One can imagine John Bunyan, in 1647, aged 19, returning from his three-year spell in the Parliamentary Army during the English Civil War to work as a tinker, living in a cottage further along the High Street, and meeting up with friends for a drink here.

At that time, there may have been a carriage opening where your boot room now is, with an additional building on the chimney side. A C18th landlord was also a butcher, with his shop adjacent to the inn. The stone that you see might have come from the ruined Abbey. The staircase was once external, with the studio separate from the rest of the house, later becoming the kitchens and barrel room for the pub. Where your kitchen now is may have been a Victorian extension. Swan House has many stories to tell - and is the more fascinating for that.

It’s hard not to fall in love with Swan House as soon as you step into the kitchen, with its exposed red bricks, painted Shaker furniture housing top-of-the-range appliances, and a fluted Belfast sink skirt - as with all the bespoke soft furnishings in your new home, made in the studio here – which tones in beautifully with the tiles beneath your feet.

Breakfast at an oak island supported by vintage haberdashery cabinets, toasty warm from the hidden baby version of the tall radiator near the pantry, logs ablaze in the inglenook stove. Throw open the French doors to the gravelled coffee area outside come springtime, cafetière filled from the hot tap, canna lilies and tulips providing a riot of colour, the climbing hydrangea a lovely soft scent.

The kitchen and the beautiful beamed and oak-floored sitting room, complete with study area where once the bar was, and the dining room, with yet another cosy inglenook fireplace, are all open to each other, adding to the feeling of family space, and great for entertaining. Look closely to the side of the lovely window seat and you can see a painting on the vertical wall timber. Glance up as you step into the hall and read John Bunyan’s “Author’s Apology” above the door – something of interest at every turn.

William Morris told us: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not believe to be beautiful.” He might have been thinking about Swan House. Beautifully decorated, even the cloak and boot rooms feature GP & J Baker wallcoverings and Roman blinds. The floors, too, whether ceramic, oak, reclaimed brick slips, or flags brought in from the yard to the studio, are a joy to walk on. Latch doors, whether new or old, are beautiful to look at, let alone use. Notice the blocked-up, late-Gothic doorway in the bathroom. Near the lovely, old door into the yard, how intriguing the now internal, studio window is; and the bressummer beam in the snug, which suggests another old, hidden inglenook.

And how wonderful to wake up in beautiful bedrooms, with high, vaulted ceilings and gorgeous timbers, and one with a delightful, year-round view over the garden of the abbey – look forward to autumn, as the leaves drop and the light glistens on the stained glass of the church. And as the garden springs to life, and you relax with a glass of wine amongst unusual hellebores, tree peonies, daphne, dahlias, camellia and rhododendrons, finches and robins chirruping amongst the apple and cherry blossom, you can barely believe that you’re just a few minutes from town.