Detached house for sale in Selwood Manor, Frome, Somerset BA11
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Property description
This exceptional Grade ii-listed manor house and its three ancillary accommodations are set amidst almost four and a half acres of grounds in a secure rural position close to Frome, east Somerset. Built around 1740, the main honey-coloured stone manor house offers a stately 5,600 sq ft of accommodation, with the separate cottage and barn adding a further 2,260 sq ft of guest quarters, each with its own private outdoor space. There is also a brilliantly versatile and contemporary architect-designed leisure and entertainment complex within the grounds, measuring almost 2,750 sq ft with a cinema and a gym. The beautiful gardens encompass woodland, formal gardens, kitchen gardens and an outdoor heated swimming pool. Transport links are wonderfully convenient, with trains from nearby Westbury Station reaching London Paddington in 77 minutes precisely. Bristol Airport is also just 45 minutes’ drive away. Further land is available by separate negotiation.
Setting the Scene
Set off a quiet country lane just five minutes from Frome, Selwood Manor is in an exceptionally peaceful and rural setting with no direct neighbours. It is situated in the north-east of Somerset, close to the Wiltshire borders. The River Frome runs at the bottom of the gardens, with a direct footpath leading to the centre of its namesake town through the surrounding bucolic landscape.
The manor house faces south-east, with views down to the private woodland and the river beyond. To the side of the home’s Yorkstone terrace is a two-bedroom cottage, an original building within the grounds. Closer to the main parking area is the L-shaped barn, which was almost entirely rebuilt and is now an especially spacious one-bedroom guest accommodation. The newer entertainment complex, Cooper Hall, was designed in a sympathetic manner, with all the buildings built from local stone in a similar honeyed hue.
The buildings unite within this immensely peaceful and private position to form a complex of sorts, or a private hamlet, offering great versatility of use. All have recently undergone an exhaustive campaign to completely overhaul their respective entire structures, including all new utilities, interior finishes and a total restoration of the exteriors and original features, with Cooper Hall built from new. The restoration works were implemented by local specialist builder Roy Pike & Son, who subsequently have worked almost exclusively for the Longleat Estate.
The current owners have also sought to make the heating and cooling systems as eco-friendly as possible where possible, including state-of-the-art ground-source heat pump technology. The entire house, ancillary buildings and grounds also incorporate an extensive security system, including cameras and direct response connections to account holders' mobile devices.
The Grand Tour
From Jack’s Lane there are two adjacent sets of gates: One leads to Cooper Hall, the entertainment and leisure complex, the other with remote access control and cameras directly to the main house and barn accommodation along an extended drive, festooned with daffodils in springtime. Both the grounds and the driveway are bounded by low stone walls. Mature trees are interspersed within the verdant lawns, leading to a large parking area with ev charging in front of the L-shaped barn, to the side of the main house, while Cooper Hall has its own separate expansive parking area.
Selwood Manor
The 18th-century manor house is built in the Jacobean style, with the main elevations formed from honey-coloured rubble stone with a triple Roman tile roof; the five gabled dormers are crowned with three chimney stacks. The fine façade is seven bays wide within the principal structure and features stone mullioned windows with leaded lights (many of which are secondary glazed). Later single-storey outshuts feature at the north-east and south-west ranges, forming further sympathetic and symmetrical additions.
A generous entrance porch opens to the heart of the home, a spacious hall used as a drawing room. An open-well oak staircase sits here, along with exposed beams and a huge wood burner set into an open hearth with an exposed bressummer above. Oak floorboards extend underfoot, leading to a further reception room in the south-east range with the same architectural features as the hall. This in turn opens to an intimate television den, with a glass and steel staircase leading up to a private study on the first floor that can also act as a bedroom.
From the hall, the north-east range of the house is home to the dining room with an expansive inglenook fireplace. This leads to the generous kitchen; built in the newest outshut, it has limestone tiles underfoot that are warmed by underfloor heating. Oak cabinetry is bespoke, with quartz worktops and integrated appliances throughout. There are double Bosch ovens, a Neff induction hob, plus a coffee machine, microwave and dishwasher also built into the design. A central table and benches were thoughtfully commissioned at the same time, in matching planes of oak. To the rear is a utility room, also accommodating a plant for the house, and there is a separate pantry and WC.
The first floor is home to sleeping quarters, with two of the five bedrooms complemented by contemporary en suite facilities. The bedrooms on this floor include the principal bedroom suite with wonderful views of the garden. Its spacious en suite bathroom has a freestanding bath, an oak double vanity sink unit and a large stone-clad shower enclosure. It also has a dressing room with further bespoke wardrobing. The uppermost storey has two further bedrooms set amongst the eaves, each with en suite facilities.
The manor house is heated by an oil-fired central heating system, with radiators cleverly concealed in skirting boards throughout the house. An integrated speaker system also features in most rooms and has Bluetooth capability. Hotel-grade plumbing has been installed as part of the extensive restoration, with high water pressure ensuring a favourable bathing experience.
Guest Cottage
The guest cottage is a charming two-bedroom home with 1,000 sq ft of space. Double-fronted, the house also has a pantile roof and painted box sash windows. Executed to a similarly high standard as the main house, it presents wonderfully cosy additional accommodation.
The cottage has its own private area of garden, consisting of lawns screened from the main house garden by a fir hedge. Iron railings divide the garden of the cottage from the garden area of Cooper Hall to the rear.
But and Ben Barn
The one-bedroom barn accommodation takes the form of an L-shaped plan, comprising almost 1,200 sq ft. Slate flagstones extend underfoot, warmed by underfloor heating, and all the rooms are spacious, bright and finished in a contemporary fashion. The living room is some 40 ft deep, with a warming wood-burning stove and views towards the River Frome.
Folding glass doors open from the living room to an expansive raised deck with further amazing views to the fields, meadows and river beyond, and solar panels discretely positioned on the rear of the roof provide electricity.
Adjacent to the barn accommodation nearest the parking area is further garaging, a bike store and an underfloor heated room for overflow wardrobing for the manor house.
Cooper Hall
Over the past 12 years since its completion, Cooper Hall has acted for the current owners as a creative haven for a wide variety of activities and an eclectic programme of performance events. The potential of this beautifully appointed, architect-designed building is broad-ranging; while also currently used as a leisure complex, it could be used as an art studio, rehearsal space or for private events and parties.
Measuring some 2,750 sq ft, it was built to Jonathan Cooper’s design, combined with specialist historic built environment architects Chedburn Dudley Building Conservation and Design from Bradford-on-Avon. The hall and further spaces have underfloor heating with cooling and air conditioning supplied by the ground-sourced electric heat pump system.
The central hall has a soaring open-pitch roof with huge oak beams, designed without cross-supporting brackets to maximise the sense of volume in this main space, creating an almost chapel-like quality. This light and airy space was also designed with excellent acoustics in mind and there are blackout blinds to all the expansive floor-to-ceiling sliding windows either side of the entire hall.
Double pocket doors from the rear hall open to a professional-grade cinema and screening room, with sound-padded walls, professional projector, screen, and audio fittings, with reclining leather cinema seating for 12. The gym is set above the cinema and further audio-visual facilities are also incorporated here. A door from the gym leads to a small balcony that looks down to the main hall.
Additional leisure facilities lie to the western range of Cooper Hall, beyond the entrance hall, serving the outdoor heated swimming pool; these include two spacious changing rooms with showers and steam rooms, a service kitchen, the plant room, and access to the underfloor, heated and frameless glass loggia that overlooks the pool. Cooper Hall also has its own private garden, south-facing flagstone terrace and rose-strewn pergola that leads to its separate car park.
The Great Outdoors
The gardens and surrounding grounds at Selwood Manor encompass approximately four and a half acres in total, framing the accommodations within formal gardens, grasslands and and bordering woodland that extends to the banks of the River Frome below. There is also an area of predominantly poplar woodland and mainly coniferous woodland to the side of Cooper Hall, within which is a plant shed for the ground-source heat pump heating and cooling system for the hall, swimming pool and cottage.
Surrounding the south-east facing elevatio
For more information about this property, please contact
Inigo, SE1 on +44 20 8128 9436 * (local rate)
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