It was where Princess Diana kicked back — where she ran barefoot around the ornamental lake and wild-flower gardens, and, five years into her troubled marriage to Prince Charles, felt “truly free”.
Diana — who would have turned 50 last week — visited Pound House, the Wiltshire home of the celebrated society portraitist John Merton, several times in the mid-1980s to sit for the famous triple portrait that depicts her in a yellow silk dress, and which now hangs in Cardiff City Hall.
In 1989, her former mother-in-law also spent time in the house’s shabby but comfortable 34ft by 21ft studio, allowing Merton to complete a silverpoint drawing of her — with the artist’s picks of classical music and opera playing in the background. The picture, which is now part of the Royal Collection, shows the Queen with a slight smile, unusual in itself.
It’s all down to the idyllic landscape in which Pound House is set, claims Merton’s daughter, Nicola Merton-Richards, 62, who lives with her family in a converted stable block next door. “It’s blessed with an extraordinary natural energy and its very own microclimate,” she says. “People who come here never fail to comment on how magical it is and how uplifted they feel.”
Merton lived at the property, which stands in nearly seven acres in Oare, near Marlborough, for three decades until his death in February, aged 97. During that time, he created an artistic and horticultural haven with his wife, the pianist Penelope von Bernd, who died in 2009.
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When he built it in 1962, however, the artist had no intention of ever living there himself.
The quirky one-storey Palladian-style home, which has brick parapets as well as more contemporary touches, was designed as a retreat for his wife’s parents. Then, in 1978, after the elderly couple had died, von Bernd persuaded her husband that they should move in.
“They actually nearly got divorced over it,” their daughter laughs. “My father only agreed to leave our Queen Anne farmhouse in Enford, on the River Avon, if the “jumpie” came with us — a long metal pole with a bucket seat at one end that you could spin around on. He was constantly inventing quirky toys for children.”
The couple set about extending the house to suit their requirements. Today, the four-bedroom, three-bathroom property has nearly 5,800 sq ft of space, with a dark room, a studio with underfloor heating and a workshop. (Merton created his meticulous portraits by making hundreds of slides of his subjects, with a stereo camera, in various lights and guises.)
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He also added a large garden room for von Bernd, in which she grew scores of varieties of tropical plants, including orchids, for her husband to paint.
The grounds became von Bernd’s domain. The plot of land at the foot of Martinsell Hill had always been flat and treeless, but over the years she planted an arboretum of rare specimen trees, shrubs and
flowers.
She also had a lake dug, into which she introduced ducks. Canada geese, mallard and all sorts of wildlife, including badgers and deer, are now regular visitors.
So, with Merton-Richards perfectly happy in the converted stable block, and her two sons, Jamie, 30, and Jesse, 28, grown up, Pound House is now up for sale — for £2.5m. Whoever buys it will probably want to update the property (the decor hasn’t been touched for years), and, unfortunately, the planning permission granted for adding a wing has lapsed.
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It may help that its last owner was so celebrated — his 1958 portrait of the aristocratic beauty Jane Dalkeith, later the Dowager Duchess of Buccleuch, was hailed by Cecil Beaton as “the picture of the century” — and that he is well represented in the National Portrait Gallery. Whatever the new owners’ interests, however, they will still be able to run barefoot round the lake.
Pound House is for sale with Winkworth; 01380 729777, winkworth.co.uk