5/5/2023 0 Comments Picturesque house![]() ![]() In typical Ondaatje style, a team of 35 craftsmen and builders was drafted in to renovate the entire, 12,552sq ft house in a military-style operation that took just seven months to complete. ‘Despite its romantic, Daphne du Maurier appearance, the house was an absolute wreck, with rain pouring through the roof, right down to the ground floor,’ Sir Christopher recalls. The following year, the house, by then in a parlous state of repair, was bought by the present owners. On September 11, 1983, a snippet in Country Life announced the sale, ‘for the first time in its history, of Glenthorne, with 18 acres of gardens, woods and paddock, access to the foreshore, and views across the Bristol Channel to Wales’ offers in the region of £250,000 were sought by Jackson-Stops & Staff in Yeovil. Following William’s death in 1898, Glenthorne was left to his second daughter, Constance, who owned it until her death in 1952 it eventually passed, in 1968, to Benjamin Halliday, the last of the family to live there. He added the billiard room and had a croquet lawn created at the side of the house. Halliday died childless in 1872, leaving the estate to his sister’s son, William, who was High Sheriff of Devon in 1882. It also offers additional accommodation, a first-floor theatre, a charming courtyard and, to the rear, stabling and garaging. ![]() The bay windows of the library look out over the sea to the north, others face east along the wooded cliffs to Porlock Bay.ĭuring the 1850s, Home Farm, a substantial stone-built house – now fully restored by the present owners and home to a unique museum of literature – was built in a sheltered corner away from the house. In 1846, the front of the house was extended by adding a library wing with a new master bedroom and dressing room above. The nucleus of the house was finished in 1831 and, in 1839, the hillside to the rear was extended to provide space for new kitchens and service quarters and a large conservatory added. Built of pinkish local stone, ornamented with Bath stone and roofed with Cornish slate, it stands in the most picturesque setting imaginable, against the backdrop of the hills and the moorland of Exmoor above it. 2 : telling about something in a way that makes it very easy to imagine : causing someone to have a very clear mental picture of something He gave a picturesque vivid account of his travels. Only then could work begin on the house, which is classically Georgian in places and Gothic in others, with some homespun Tudor elements in between. 1 : very pretty or charming : like a painted picture a picturesque village/setting The view of the mountains was very picturesque. Stables were built at Home Farm to house working horses, a track was cut to the shore and a landing stage built for building materials to come in by sea. Halliday was in the happy position of being able to choose his landscape and fit his house into it. Woods climb giant hills behind us, separated occasionally by narrow streams, hidden by ferns and rhododendrons, which cascade over mossy rocks down to the stony beach’. Country Life's Top 100 architects, builders, designers and gardenersįor Sir Christopher, ‘it is the most beautiful spot on Earth. ![]()
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