Sparsholt Manor

An exceptional Grade II listed country house in the ‘Arts & Crafts’ style with far-reaching views and excellent proximity to Winchester


Description

Sparsholt Manor provides beautifully proportioned and elegant accommodation with the principal reception rooms designed to make the most of the elevated setting and the exceptional views. The house retains many features and characteristics of the ‘Arts & Crafts’ era including polished oak floorboards, impressive fireplaces with stone surrounds and some handsome panelling. The front door opens into a reception hall on the north side of the house with a panelled sitting room found to the left hand side. Ahead, a door opens through to the morning room which has double doors linking through to the adjacent drawing room. A panelled dining room completes the trio of formal reception rooms along the south side of the house, with a pretty loggia to either side. There is also a study, and cloakroom. The current owners have created an exceptional kitchen/ breakfast room on the west side of the house which is a wonderful informal living space with French doors opening onto a large, south facing terrace. There is an excellent range of fitted cupboards, an Everhot range cooker and a walk-in larder. Beyond the kitchen is the back hall with a boot room, gun room and cloakroom.

The wide first floor landing gives access to five bedrooms including the substantial principal bedroom suite with a bathroom and dressing room and two family bath/shower rooms. On the second floor there are two further bedrooms and a large bathroom.

Cottage, Annexe and Outbuildings To the west of the house the former coach house and stable block has been adapted to provide secondary accommodation as well as storage. To one side there is a superb 1 bedroom cottage, ideal for guests or staff and providing a good-sized sitting room and kitchen on the ground floor and a bedroom and bathroom on the first floor. The far side of the coach house is currently used as offices with a shower room and kitchenette and therefore easily adapted to provide a further annexe if required. There is a garage, garden store and workshop.

Gardens and Grounds Sparsholt Manor sits within superb gardens and grounds which maintain much of their original layout and are listed in their own right. The main driveway approaches the house from the north-east giving a glimpse as you arrive of the spectacular views over the gardens to the south. It leads to a wide parking and turning area to the north of the house. There is a second driveway, also opening onto Woodman Lane. The house faces south over a York stone terrace with formal lawns and herbaceous borders. Two flights of stone steps lead down to the main lawn, divided by a rill fed from a masque fountain and flowing down to a circular pool to the centre of the lawn. A ha-ha and a hedge separate the main garden from the meadow beyond. Within the grounds there are a variety of specimen trees. To the West of the house, a wisteria clad pergola leads down to the ogee roofed summerhouse which is a copy of one found in Triggs’ own garden at Little Boarhunt near Liphook. Beyond here is a walled kitchen garden with some beautiful formal planting. The Astroturf tennis court and swimming pool (heated by an Air Source Heat Pump) are both found to the east of the house.

Location

Sparsholt is considered to be one of Hampshire’s finest villages and is located in beautiful countryside just to the west of Winchester. It is a thriving community with a pub, shop/post office, church and primary school and is also home to the renowned Lainston House Hotel. Winchester is a thriving Cathedral city providing a wide range of restaurants, shops and other amenities as well as a fast rail service to London Waterloo. The popular market town of Stockbridge is also nearby, offering a selection of independent shops and restaurants. The house is ideally located for access to many well-regarded preparatory and secondary schools, including Princes Mead, Twyford, Pilgrims, Farleigh, St Swithun’s and Winchester College.

Hampshire is renowned for its chalk stream fishing on the Test and Itchen Rivers and there is golf at Hockley, the Royal Winchester and the South Winchester, sailing on the Solent and numerous opportunities for walking and riding in the surrounding countryside. Road and rail connections are excellent with services to London Waterloo from Winchester and the M3 (6 miles) and A34 (3 miles) connecting to the wider motorway network.

Square Footage: 6,814 sq ft




Acreage: 12.89 Acres


Additional Info

Sparsholt Manor is a fine example of an early 20th Century ‘Arts and Crafts’ house commissioned by Samuel Bostock, a local dignitary and former owner of Lainston House, now the Lainston House Hotel.

Designed and built between 1922 and 1923, the house and gardens are typical of layouts by the architect Harry Inigo Triggs (1876-1923) in partnership with firstly, William Frederick Unsworth and then his son Gerald. Unsworth and Triggs designed a prodigious number of houses in Surrey, Sussex and
Hampshire, mostly vernacular in style and often reminiscent of Lutyens.

Triggs was a formalist and also took on the task of designing the gardens as he believed this was the architect’s responsibility. He was primarily interested in the garden as architecture, in which craftsmanship and local materials combined to create a garden of structure. The formal treatment of his gardens was softened and complemented by cottage garden informality with herbaceous plantings in the style of Gertrude Jekyll. More than any other architect of the period, Triggs was fascinated by the use of water. The sunken garden was a typical feature, often with a lily pool in the centre, and his interpretation of Italian Renaissance and Moorish Spanish villa gardens. In keeping with many other houses that Unsworth and Triggs designed, Sparsholt Manor occupies an elevated position commanding beautiful far reaching southerly views.

Marketed by: Savills, Country Houses