WEACOMBE stands in a glorious position at the western end of the Quantock Hills in as ravishing a site as one could hope to find a middle-sized country house in southern England. Every mile of the drive from Taunton is exhilarating. On one side the road is followed by the snaking line of the West Somerset Railway with steam engines pulling coaches in brown and cream GWR livery. On the other is a majestic sweep of steep, smooth, rolling hills topped with a cresting of woods.
On offer, for the healthy sum of £5 million, is an enchanting small estate of 289 acres, providing enough land to protect you in every direction with views across a broad fertile valley to the Brendon Hills and Exmoor beyond. The house is set with its back to the hill and a short walk up the hillside provides a magnificent panorama of one of the grandest sweeps of the Bristol Channel. With the sea so close, winter brings no severe frosts and spiky echiums from the Canaries flourish in the gardens.
To the south of the house is a crescent-shaped canal, large enough to call a lake, stretching out in a gentle curve with the end intriguingly hidden from view. Garden walks on either side take you through a magnificent display of rhododendrons, 160 varieties in all, many grown from seedlings by the present owners John and Marian Greswell and providing continuous colour for seven months a year. Not surprisingly, they have reserved the right to take cuttings when they move to another heavenly site a few miles along the valley.
The main front is a delightful specimen of mid-Georgian architecture with a doll’s house pediment to the centre, a handsome four- columned porch and “Gibbs” windows — the emphatic stone surrounds favoured by the architect James Gibbs, whose designs for country houses were widely used in North America.
The likelihood is that the house is the work of a good local master builder, but one who had worked with an accomplished local architect such as John Strahan of Bristol, picking up fashionable detail and correct Classical proportions.
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The manor of Weacombe is listed in Domesday Book when it belonged to Roger de Cursell. From 1534 it alternated between the Harrison family and the owners of nearby Dunster Castle. In 1789 the manor was bought by the St Albyn family. In 1870 Mr Greswell’s great grandfather, the Rev Ottiwell Sadler, bought the estate. His eldest son lived here until his death, when the house passed to Mr Greswell’s mother, who was married to the Somerset cricketer W. T. Greswell.
The glazed Victorian front doors open into a handsome hall painted a pretty coral pink with rounded corners adding a Baroque flourish. The six-panel pine doors, now stripped, open on the left into a lofty beautifully proportioned dining room and a matching drawing room on the right. Both have finely carved wooden chimneypieces, a little later in date than the house, brought from another house by Mr Sadler. Both rooms have windows at the ends as well as the front, filling them with light. Beyond the hall is an elegant wooden stair cantilevered out from the walls. It is constructed without half landings, with steps fanning out to create a curve on each corner though the single baluster on the corner steps slightly weakens the effect. Above, the first-floor bedrooms at the front again have a double outlook with views across to the hills.
Part of the appeal of the house to anyone who likes rambling, informal layouts is the extensive domestic quarters at the back — old kitchen, larder and scullery and wine cellar with studded door, stone paving and neat brick channel for washing the floor down. These provide extensive space for office, study, studio and flower room as well as a selfcontained attached cottage. Upstairs there are seven bedrooms in all with further space in the attic where there is a pretty Chinese Chippendale fretwork balustrade at the top of the stair.
The main windows at the sides of the house also have Gibbs surrounds and all retain the original satisfyingly chunky mid-18th century glazing bars that were so often replaced by thinner bars in later Georgian times. Though it is tempting to think all this is of one period there is a break in the west flank, as well as a roof slope concealed within another, suggesting that the house may have been extended soon after the main front was completed.
The first-floor games room retains panels of Regency coloured glass painted in shades of grey and gold with Napoleonic motifs, spears entwined with snakes and scrolls of acanthus.
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Behind the house is a stable yard with a pretty stable block lit by lunette windows and a large walled garden cleverly planted to form a series of informal garden rooms with interconnecting vistas. The land behind the house rises to the top of the hill where the estate marches with National Trust land. Here a large punchbowl has a swirling mass of wild rhododendrons.
Weacombe also has a delightful polygonal Regency gatelodge with wooden veranda. This stands guard along the lane approaching the house. The drive up to the house was closed when the lake began to leak but this has been attended to and a new owner will have the opportunity to re-create a gloriously picturesque approach to the house.
Knight Frank: 020-7629 8171