Gloucestershire
The Thatched Cottage is in the village of Alderton, five miles from Winchcombe and 11 from Cheltenham. Dating from the 16th century, the four-bedroom cottage is grade II listed. Period features include beamed reception rooms and an inglenook fireplace, but it was recently renovated — and new thatch was installed in 2020. Inside, modern comforts include underfloor heating in the kitchen, a utility room and a principal bedroom suite with a dressing room. A new annexe on the site of a double garage has a cinema room, WC and a vaulted office on the first floor. Outside there is a swimming pool, terrace and pool house with a changing room and shower. Alderton has a shop/post office, pub, primary school, village hall and church.
EPC Exempt
Upside No onward chain.
Downside Sloped ceilings upstairs.
Price £1.25 million
Contact stowhillestates.com
Co Durham
The former village hall in Shotley Bridge has been converted into a modern five-bedroom house. The highlight is a grand entrance hall with high ceilings, a glass-balustrade staircase and a mezzanine. This flows into an enormous open-plan sitting room/dining room with a three-sided feature fireplace. The ground floor also has an office, pantry off the kitchen, bedroom, shower room, laundry room, store room and second staircase. Upstairs, the principal bedroom suite has an en suite the size of another bedroom, and a similarly generous walk-in wardrobe. The total floor plan is 5,501 sq ft. Shotley Bridge has a mobile post office, pubs and shops. It is on the edge of the North Pennines National Landscape, outside the town of Consett and 15 miles from Durham.
EPC C (current and potential) — on a scale of A (best) to G (worst)
Upside A showstopping modern home.
Downside A deed of easement grants the neighbouring property, the Manse, access to the Village Hall.
Price £1.2 million
Contact finest.co.uk
Norfolk
History fans take note: the Priory was built on the site of the Benedictine priory of St Faith, and incorporates 12th-century elements of the refectory range in the fabric of the building, according to its Historic England entry. Remodelled in the 1600s, today the grade I listed property extends to 6,348 sq ft of living space, comprising seven bedrooms, a kitchen kitted out with a cream Aga, three reception rooms, a snooker room and large conservatory. The mature gardens include a pond, barn and coach house. Norwich lies five miles away.
EPC Exempt
Upside There’s a chapel with a rare 13th-century monastic painting.
Downside Proximity to Norwich airport.
Price £1.25 million
Contact abbotts.co.uk
Berkshire
This modern riverside townhouse in Pangbourne has been built to make the most of the views over the River Thames: the ground-floor open-plan dining room and kitchen (with a central island, breakfast bar and integrated appliances, including dual ovens, an induction hob and wine coolers) opens directly onto the riverside garden via floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors. The ground floor also houses a WC, shower room and utility room. On the first floor you’ll find a drawing room opening, again via sliding glass doors, on to a roof terrace, and two bedrooms (one with en suite shower room). There are two more bedrooms on the third floor, a large bathroom, and on the top floor a space which could be used as a gym or otherwise. At the front of the house there is a shared driveway, garage and parking for up to two vehicles.
EPC C (potential B)
Upside Comes with a private river mooring and jetty.
Downside Artificial turf.
Price £1.25 million
Contact struttandparker.com
Essex
A former Grand Designs star, Seal Point has the wow factor. A sweeping drive leads up to the contemporary cantilevered “floating” home. The design is unusual, with the living spaces — a large kitchen/living area plus four bedrooms and bathrooms with a wraparound terrace — on one level suspended above the garage. The home’s eco-credentials are top-notch, with solar tiles, an air source heat pump and thermal glass installed. It is in Mayland village, a 30-minute drive east of Chelmsford, with views over the Blackwater River.
EPC B (current and potential)
Upside Close to Maylandsea Bay Sailing Club.
Downside Bold design might be divisive.
Price £1.25 million
Contact savills.com
Carmarthenshire
Laugharne in west Wales is famed for Dylan Thomas’s shoreline boathouse, where the poet lived and wrote his play Under Milk Wood. Overlooking Thomas’s boathouse is Cliff House, a Georgian mansion which has its own fair share of literary history, since it’s here that Kingsley Amis wrote his Booker prizewinning novel The Old Devils in 1986. Every room of this imposing four-storey property enjoys views over the Taf estuary and Carmarthen Bay. There are four bedrooms and three bathrooms, and several rooms on the upper floors could be turned into additional bedrooms.
EPC E (potential D)
Upside The property was recently reduced in price from £1.75 million.
Downside Dylan Thomas’s boathouse doesn’t come with it.
Price £1.25 million
Contact countrylivinggroup.co.uk
Surrey
Ideal for boating sorts, this detached house on Thames Ditton Island, opposite Hampton Court Palace’s grounds, has mooring for a 6.5m vessel. The house has a large open-plan living/dining/kitchen space on the ground floor, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms above. There is a separate summerhouse and deck for sitting out and watching the ducks go by. The car-free island, which is just 320m long, is a gated community of 48 homes accessed by a footbridge. The property is freehold, with the islands’ residents running a maintenance company. Thames Ditton railway station is a 13-minute walk and has 35-minute trains to London Waterloo. Thames Ditton high street, a couple of minutes’ walk away, has restaurants, cafés and shops.
EPC C (potential B)
Upside Island life within commuting distance of central London.
Downside Tricky for deliveries.
Price £1.25 million
Contact dexters.co.uk
Renfrewshire
With an RSPB Nature Reserve, a loch and a railway station with frequent 25-minute connections to Glasgow all on its doorstep, Lochside House is the countryside retreat that’s got it all. That’s before you even factor in the seven-bedroom home’s elegant, perfectly symmetrical Georgian architecture, or its huge converted barn containing a 44ft studio space and self-contained one-bedroom guest accommodation suite. The grounds also contain a separate, one-bedroom cottage. The house, near Lochwinnoch, has views to Castle Semple Loch from the upper floors, and has the cosy feel of a modest family home, with wood-burning stoves in both the kitchen and dining room.
EPC E (potential C)
Upside Twenty acres of lochside grounds, with loads of storage space, parking, a pond and a tennis court.
Downside Train line running along the boundary of the property.
Price Offers over £1.25 million
Contact struttandparker.com
Falkirk
A compact 60-acre rural estate centres on a marvellous six-bedroom home dating to around 1776. Quarter Estate’s handsome façade features a pillared entrance and stunning symmetrical windows. A breathtaking entrance hall with a staircase rises all the way through the home’s two storeys to a circular cupola. Period features include finely carved timber fireplace surrounds and ornately detailed cornicing. To the rear of the house, across a gravelled courtyard, is a converted coach house, refurbished in recent years to form a comfortable one-bedroom cottage ideal for anything from guest accommodation to multi-generational living or even a holiday let.
EPC F (potential C)
Upside Grounds include walled gardens, an orchard and 31 acres of parkland grazing.
Downside The M80 motorway droning nearby.
Price Offers over £1.25 million
Contact galbraithgroup.com
Italy
Capannori is a small medieval hamlet outside Lucca. Sitting on a lush hill, overlooking the plain and the city’s famed Renaissance walls, is this vast traditional farmhouse, which has been refurbished but retains its rustic charm, both inside and out. There are two main buildings, including a “Rustico” of around 200 sq m with three double bedrooms (one of which is en suite), a study, two living rooms with fireplaces, two kitchens and two bathrooms. The smaller stone cottage has two bedrooms and bathrooms. It comes with a 13m by 5m outdoor saltwater swimming pool.
Upside Almost four acres of land with olive groves and tall cypress trees.
Downside You’ll need wheels of some sort — the nearest shop is a mile away down a hill.
Price €1.45 million (£1.22 million)
Contact knightfrank.com
Or … a marina in the Highlands
Get away from the madding crowd and buy … a marina in the Highlands. The village of Arisaig, on the northwest coast overlooking Loch nan Ceall, has tons of unspoilt beauty and plenty of white sandy beaches. The marina, which is popular with seasonal sailors and yacht owners, extends from the village’s public road entrance to the breakwater and pier/jetty at the far end. It comes with 70 secure single-point moorings and ten light single-point moorings suitable for yachts and motor vessels up to 20 tonnes, as well as three concrete slipways, a boatshed, an office, a commercial kitchen, café and gift shop.
Upside Easy access to the A82 and to Inverness airport.
Downside No residential property on site.
Price Offers over £1.25 million
Contact rightmove.co.uk
