High Street, Turvey, Bedfordshire, MK43

IMPRESSIVE C18TH HOUSE, WITH DETACHED ANNEXE, SEPARATE STUDIO APARTMENT, WONDERFUL WALLED GARDENS - AND MUCH MORE

A substantial, Grade II-listed family home set back from the historic High Street of the delightful, Bedfordshire riverside village of Turvey. With 0.75 acres, nearly 5000 square feet of space and nine bedrooms in total, a long, gravelled driveway leads between the main house and a detached 3-bedroom annexe, to a separate 1-bedroom studio apartment above the double garage. Wonderful south-facing, walled gardens stretch down to a stream at the bottom, with beautiful countryside beyond. Richmond House is rather special.

Many villages no longer have a pub or a shop. Turvey has not one but two of each, all offering something different, and a post office and butcher’s to boot. The magnificent Saxon Church of All Saints stands at one end of the village with Turvey Abbey at the other. Richmond House and other historic stone houses, all with a fascinating story to tell, line the High Street in between. Playing fields, sports clubs and pre and primary schools are within a short stroll, and all manner of village events, including popular amateur plays, are staged for the friendly community.

Within the catchment area of the Academy School & Sixth Form at nearby Sharnbrook, Turvey is just a short drive or bus journey from the County town, its world-renowned Harpur Trust private schools, its outstanding Free School and its fast trains to London St Pancras in less than 40 minutes. It’s just 3.5 miles to the market town of Olney, with its supermarkets and antique shops, and about ten miles further on, past the M1, is Milton Keynes, with its shopping centre and railway station from where you can reach London Euston in just over half an hour.

The views from your new home give you a taste of the beautiful countryside that’s awaiting you and your dog, with the River Great Ouse a short stroll away. Richmond House is not only a wonderful family home, but it’s in an enviable village location too.

MORE ABOUT THE PROPERTY 

As if this Neo-classical stone and old clay tiled house were not beautiful enough, glorious, white roses clamber around Gothic, pointed windows and Roman Doric columns of the porch (equally glorious wisteria adorns the back wall). Not for nothing, Richmond House is admired by villagers and passers-by alike.

Step through the original, wide front door onto the oak floor of the dining hall, with its shuttered windows, display cabinet, beam and pillar, and elegant, panelled staircase rising to a landing lined with floor to ceiling bookcases, and you realise that not only does the beauty continue inside, but that Richmond House was designed to impress and entertain.

Tall, corniced ceilings, high skirtings, dado rails, beams, bay window seats and ledged and braced doors never let you forget its heritage, but first and foremost this is a superb family home, full of flexible space and natural light – not just in the main house, but in an annexe that has variously been cottages and doctor’s surgery through the ages; and in an amazing studio, with its vaulted ceiling, gorgeous timbers and fabulous views.

You not only have great options for the annexes – for family, rental, or for business, perhaps – you also have scope for adding value to the main house. You may wish to do more with the spacious bathrooms, or with the huge loft space. You might consider the exciting idea of converting the existing kitchen into a snug and the sitting room, with its French doors onto the terrace, into a kitchen that most people only dream of. After all, you have the other, peaceful sitting room, with its inglenook and wonderful woodburning stove.

You also have the large bedrooms that you’d expect of such a house. You might not have expected such views, though. Or such gardens. Extensive lawns, one of which was a tennis court, are enhanced by beds of bee-friendly planting (watered from the well) and an orchard that has supplied generations of families (and a cider society today). Relax with glass of something in the hot tub taking in the glorious sunsets. A grape vine bedecks one wall, old English roses the other. Just as you think it cannot get better, ducks gracefully glide under the bridge crossing the stream - before garden turns to countryside. Wonderful!