A Grade II* listed mansion for under £1.5 million
In London, if you’re lucky £1.475 million will buy you a basement flat in the outer parts of Chelsea. In Cumbria, the same figure will get you a vast Grade II* mansion on the border with Scotland. It may be isolated to the minds of some, but frankly, could you acquire a better weekend party pad anywhere else in the UK for such a figure?
Netherby Hall at Longtown, near Carlisle is a house that the selling agents Strutt & Parker describe as “substantial”. We’d call it “colossal” and are not surprised that they’ve opted to neglect to include the total square footage in their 16-page brochure. The main building centres around a 14th century pele tower but was primarily constructed in the 18th and 19th centuries for the Graham family and built to the designs of the “celebrated Victorian architect” William Burn.
Constructed from Cumbrian sandstone, the house – if you could call it that – includes 7 reception rooms, 6 bedroom suites, 4 further bedrooms and various ancillary accommodation. Originally priced at £2.75 million, Netherby Hall came with 37 acres and 5 cottages and 5 apartments. At the revised price – complete with a reduction of £1.275 million– the property incorporates just 17.36 acres and is split from the majority of its secondary residences. We’d suggest that any purchaser ought not to take this option as the inevitable result will be a dramatic loss of privacy. The estate, after all, at its peak was about some 60,000 acres in size.
One of Netherby Hall’s greatest claims to fame is for being the location of the theft of a collection of precious stones belonging to the then Lady Graham in 1885. The burglars were all hanged for their parts in the crime after they killed one of the police officers who tried to apprehend them. Though the Graham family had been “unpopular” according to the selling agents in the 16th century, a mob tried to lynch the burglars – James Baker, John Martin and Benjamin Rudge –before they reached the scaffold in 1886.
Equally significantly, the estate – which is said to have “hosted dignitaries and royalty” – was the setting that supposedly inspired Sir Walter Scott to write Young Lochinvar. Whomever parts with shy of £1.5 million, will have to be similarly inspired. The heating bill for this mansion must be beyond vast.
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Matthew
I wish you could persuade agents to put in the estimated running costs for these ‘bargain’ houses
They don’t even share the square footage on this one. It must be over 30,000 square foot I’d reckon. The running costs will be vast.
Each manor home requires vast amounts of money to keep it safe and comfortable ! If you do not want maintenance cost buy a condominium !
A dream home but the decor is just vile. Why do rich people have no taste?
I visited Netherby Hall around 1990 when it had been repossed and being maintained by the mortgaees to prepare it for sale. Some of the plasterwork was being recast and being replaced. What a lovely property it was, the boiler house had two.massive oil tanks, holding approx 10,000 litres each.
I think about this splendid property all the time, i would live to revisit the property before i die to see how the refurbishment has been carried out