Detached house for sale in Newtown Common, Newbury, Berkshire RG20

Leigh House is a wonderful and spacious country house which has been enlarged and renovated in recent years. Formerly the Old Rectory to Newtown, the house has a feeling of significance and charm in keeping with a Victorian rectory of this era. The recent enlargement has resulted in a spacious family house extending to over 6,000 sq ft with a particular focus around the exceptional kitchen living area. The house is now well balanced, with the more formal and gracious drawing room and dining room accessed via the original hallway, and the more casual and modern everyday space being approached from a new rear hallway. The kitchen is beautifully appointed with high quality bespoke cabinets, a full size Aga, and stylish limestone floors which benefit from underfloor heating. The kitchen itself has wonderfully high ceilings and flows into a large informal dining area and a snug sitting room area with log burning stove. There are full height French doors onto the west facing terrace overlooking the gardens and mature woodland of Newtown Common in the distance. There is also a large children’s playroom/sitting room. On the first floor there is a generous principal bedroom with a lovely bathroom and dressing room, as well as five further bedrooms, three of which are en suite, and a family bathroom. Above the playroom there are two further bedrooms and a shower room, nicely separated from the main house and providing additional space either for live in help or ancillary use.<br /><br />Leigh House is approached via a country track over Newtown Common leading to a large gravel driveway providing generous parking for the property. The gardens and grounds are fully mature and extend to just over one acre. There are south and west facing stone terraces designed to maximise the sunshine at different parts of the day, and there is a swimming pool with a pool house and decking for entertaining and relaxing. There is also a tennis court, as well as a range of useful timber outbuildings.<br /><br />Leigh House is situated in a highly convenient location at Newtown Common, just on the edge of Newbury itself and benefitting from the extensive range of facilities available in the town, combined with the beautiful surrounding countryside. Newbury offers a wide choice of shops, cafes, restaurants and pubs in the high street, market place and Parkway shopping area, as well as larger supermarkets, including Waitrose, on the edge of the town. There is a choice of leisure activities on offer including Newbury racecourse, several nearby golf courses, and the Watermill and Corn Exchange theatres. Road and rail communications are excellent with easy access to the A34 and M4 linking with London, Heathrow Airport and the west country, and there are direct train services from Newbury into London Paddington. There is a wide choice of highly regarded schools in the area including Horris Hill, Cheam, Elstree, Thorngrove, Downe House, Bradfield College, St Gabriel's, and St Bartholomew's Secondary School.