Rydiness Farmhouse

According to county records Rydiness Farmhouse is at least 300 years old and is built of local stone under a clay tile roof. Originally the farmhouse had a collection of attendant, stone-built farm buildings that in recent years have been converted. This has been undertaken very carefully to ensure that mutual privacy is preserved and today the result is a collection of six separate properties grouped widely at the end of a 250-yard drive from Hare Lane. Despite being unlisted the property has retained many of its original architectural fittings and as a result is full of character. These include wall and roof timbers, beams (some low), inglenook fireplaces in the sitting and dining rooms, an oak panelled wall plus a bible cupboard in the dining room, stone mullion windows and several window seats on both floors. It has also undergone a full programme of sympathetic refurbishment and improvement and today is beautifully presented both inside and out. It has an east/west axis with the back of the house and therefore most of its windows look east across part of its beautiful garden and towards unspoilt countryside beyond.

The internal layout of the farmhouse is typical of the period with a centrally positioned entrance hall bracketed by the sitting room and then the study on one side and the dining room leading through to the charming kitchen/breakfast room on the other. The kitchen has a lovely view over the garden, a tiled floor, painted ceiling timbers and is fitted with a range of contemporary units under timber work surfaces. Upstairs are a total of five bedrooms with wonderful countryside views; four doubles and one single. The principal bedroom has a particularly lovely view, which is shared from the tub in the adjacent bathroom and one of the double bedrooms currently serves as a dressing room and the other as a second study.

Rydiness Farmhouse is accessed via a 250 yard long drive with the final 100 yards owned by the property, with just one neighbour having a right of way along it. The gates of the house access a tarmac parking area providing space for several cars. There is a stone-built double garage with loft storage space. The garden was created by the current owners and extends around three sides of the house and is testament to their hard work and creativity. It has been planted with a wonderfully rich variety of mature trees, flowering shrubs, roses and herbaceous perennials that combine to provide colour and shape throughout the year. Within the garden are a circular terrace with direct access to the dining room, a pond overlooked by a thatched rondavel fitted with a hot tub, a lean-to log store that is home to nesting swallows, a summer house covered in a beautiful mature clematis, a greenhouse and a well with a hand pump. Stretching out on the opposite side of the drive are two sloping, wild flower meadows on the side of a hidden valley that flower from May to mid-July and also provide a hay crop. In all about 8 acres (3.24 hectares)

Buckland St Mary 2.5 miles, Horton 2.5 miles, A303 2.6 miles, lminster 5 miles, Chard 7.9 miles, Taunton 9.2 miles (Paddington 1 hour 40 minutes), Exeter Airport 26.7 miles, Exeter city centre 33 miles. (Distances and time approximate)

Rydiness Farmhouse is situated in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at the end of a long private drive, amidst rolling countryside and between the small village of Buckland St. Mary and the larger, twin villages of Horton and Broadway. Buckland St. Mary has a church, village hall, pre-school and primary school, whilst Horton and Broadway have a shop, post office, GP surgery and 2 pubs. For wider day to day requirements the property is also close to the towns of Ilminster and Chard, which both have a goods range of independent shops and Ilminster also has the Temperley design complex. The county town of Taunton is close by with a rail link to Paddington (1 hour 40 minutes). Ilminster, Chard and Taunton can all be reached by local roads. There are good schools nearby both within the State and private sectors including King's and Queen's Colleges in Taunton, Wellington and Perrott Hill, which are all within a 15 mile radius. Exeter is 30 miles away and Bristol 50 miles away and both
have airports offering flights to national and international destinations

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