House for sale in Winkleigh, Devon EX19 8TS

Mileage

Exeter about 30 miles, South Molton (M5 link road) about 14 miles

Description

A perfectly balanced estate, with a magnificent but manageable Manor House at the centre, surrounded by mature parkland and gardens with enough land to provide protection and privacy. The house is elevated providing superb views to Dartmoor, almost 15 miles to the south. At night the darkness is complete with no intrusive artificial lights to spoil the clear skies.
The house itself is set well back from the lane and screened by mature trees, thus ensuring a high degree of privacy. Yet it is very accessible with a good network of roads and railway stations within easy reach.
In Devon very few houses are attributed to a known architect, and it speaks volumes for the attractiveness of the site that Henry Hole felt inspired to instruct Thomas Lee, a student of the much more famous Sir John Soane, of the Bank of England fame, to design such an interesting house. Soane was working in Devon at the time, being the architect of Castle Hill among other major mansion houses, so may have had some personal influence. Thomas Lee had so far only completed the Wellington Monument and Arlington Court in North Devon. The interiors and detailed designs involved in Ebberly House are very sophisticated, something very unusual in Devon almost 200 years ago.
Ebberly is a very compact Estate, with no public rights of way, each element is self contained, and, indeed, the farming operation can easily be separated from the house without much difficulty. The main drive leads through the attractive gardens only to the house; the cottages, which provide a substantial income, are accessed off the back drive or off a separate side drive from the lane; and the modern farm buildings, while only a few minutes walk from the house, have their own entrance, directly off the lane.
Other than the gardens, there are about 20 acres of mature woodland, mainly small copses dotted between the fields and along the boundaries. Some new plantations have been established under woodland grant schemes and these, together with the lakes, are the foundation of a small family shoot.