Description
A Grade II listed Georgian stone rectory with equestrian facilities including stabling and outbuildings, set in approximately five acres with gardens, a tennis court, and paddocks, overlooking estate parkland. On the edge of a rural village and set in grounds which overlook the Norman church and protected estate parkland, the property is secluded but not isolated; while there are good links to transport and local amenities, this proximity does not affect the tranquil setting. The main Georgian limestone house under a hipped slate roof has a central semi-octagonal three storey pavilion at the front with two storey symmetrical wings with sash windows, and another three-storey pavilion at the back with a later two-storey wing. The accommodation is spread out with connecting hallways and landings, with main and back staircases to the first floor and two staircases to the second floor, which would facilitate the creation of an annexe. The original limestone, two-storey coach house could also be converted to an independent annexe.
. The Old Rectory has been a family home for many centuries and there have been modern refurbishments such as a fitted kitchen and bathrooms, but the property retains notable architecture features reflecting the quality of the original late 18th-century building.
. The front door opens to a flagged entrance hall, leading right to a secondary hall with the main staircase, which leads to the playroom and the family room, opening to the conservatory and shower room. A flagstone hallway left of the entrance hall accesses the drawing room at the rear and the study and dining room at the front. At the end of the hallway is the kitchen/breakfast room, opening to a lobby which accesses the back staircase to the first floor, the laundry, and the boot room. Beyond the main staircase, a first-floor landing (with a seating area), accesses the family bathroom and principal bedroom. A step leads to two more landings, one which accesses bedroom two, a cloakroom, and stairs to bedroom six on the second floor. A corridor runs the length of the first floor (with windows over the rear) leading to three double bedrooms and two bathrooms. Another staircase, outside bedroom four, reaches three more second-floor double bedrooms and a shower room.
Original Retained Features The listed building (no. 1189205) retains notable features. Outside, the sash windows in the front are set in arches with trefoiled heads. At the rear, the drawing room and two bedrooms above, are set in a canted bay with ironstone quoins surmounted by a crow stepped gable with a finial. Almost all the sash windows have original wooden shutters. The main staircase, with carved tread ends and a mahogany hand rail, has unusual wooden trellis balustrades, designed to resemble cast iron. Throughout the house are the original late 18th- or early 19th-century panelled doors, usually with panelled jambs, and there are various internal arches, notably in the entrance hallway, articulating the flow of the building. The front door has a gothic over light and some internal doorways have fanlights. Echoes of the past remain such as the servants bells outside the kitchen, a few early leaded casement windows, and some exposed beams.
Ground Floor .
Kitchen/Breakfast Room A panelled door with a fanlight leads to the double aspect kitchen/breakfast room with sash windows overlooking the front (with a window seat) and rear, and an oil-fired AGA. There are base and wall fitted units with painted wooden panelled doors (some glazed) and granite worksurfaces and splashbacks, an inset stainless steel sink, and areas of handmade wall tiles. Integrated appliances include a Bosch dishwasher, a microwave, an undercounter fridge and a new oven. There is a panelled, double-doored hatch to the dining room and Chinese slate flooring continues from this room to the laundry and boot room.
Laundry and Boot Room A door from the kitchen leads through a tongue-and-grove lobby with a storage cupboard, a window to the front and doors to the laundry and boot room. The laundry has a butlers sink under a rear window, an understairs storage cupboard with shelving, and ample room for a full-height fridge/freezer. There is space and plumbing for a washing machine and tumble dryer. The over 15 ft. by 14 ft. boot room has an external door to the side of the house which is often currently used as the entrance to the house. With tongue-and-groove panelling to dado height, the dual aspect room has numerous original panelled storage cupboards, hooks for outdoor clothing and space for boots.
Drawing Room The elongated octagonal drawing room is nearly 24 ft. long and dominated by a canted bay of windows overlooking the garden. Two nearly floor-to-ceiling sash windows with panelling beneath, flank a central window with French doors to the garden. There is an open fireplace with a neo-classical stone surround with flanking alcove bookshelves under elliptical arches with cupboards beneath. On the opposite wall are two similar inset bookshelves and there is a shelved cupboard by the door. The room has the original stained oak exposed floorboards.
Next to the drawing room is a two piece cloakroom with a window to the side. In the floor is the trap door accessing steps to the over 16 ft. by over 10 ft. brick lined cellar. The exterior wall of the cloakroom is crenelated.
Dining Room and Sitting Room Overlooking the front, the 20 ft. long dining room has a canted bay of 16-pane sash windows, with shutters that pull up from the panelling beneath. This panelling, the moulded skirting boards and panelled door are stripped, as is the original oak floor. An open fireplace has a Georgian-style surround. There is ample room for a dining table seating a dozen people.
On the north side, is the over 21 ft. by 16 ft. family room, which is part of a later, possibly 19th-century addition to the house. It has nearly floor-to-ceiling sash windows overlooking the garden, an open fireplace housing an inset wood burning stove with a stripped wood surround. The deep frieze of the coving has relief decoration; there is a fitted storage cupboard with double doors and covered radiators. The room links the main house to the conservatory.
Conservatory Steps down from the sitting room access an ante room to the conservatory, with a circular window at the side and a door opens to the shower room. A much later addition, the conservatory measures over 30 ft. by 24 ft., has an exposed brick back wall with three circular windows and a quarry tiled floor. It is built on a stone base with an apsidal central bay, facing onto the garden (recalling the canted bays of the main house). Flanking the bay are French doors with steps down to the lawn. The roof has electrically operated blinds.
The current owners use the conservatory as a living room but have left intact the swimming pool that is beneath the floor. A door in the cloakroom by the shower room accesses the viable pump room.
Study and Play Room The final two reception rooms are of similar proportions and have single sash windows. The study, overlooks the front, and the play room, which would also make a convenient office, has views of the garden. The study has a small built-in wall cupboard, while the play room has a boarded-up fireplace with an alcove storage cupboard on the left.
First Floor .
Principal Bedroom and Family Bathroom The principal bedroom leads off a first floor landing which has views out of a window over the neighbouring church tower (the church is infrequently used). Chosen by the current owners as the principal bedroom for the views over the garden and neighbouring parkland seen through double sash windows, the bedroom measures over 19 ft. 16 ft. and has covered radiators.
The next door five piece family bathroom is part tiled and includes a panel bath, a walk-in shower, and a heated towel rail, whimsically fitted by a previous owner to the simple, 19th-century fire surround. There is a sash window overlooking the rear garden and a cupboard housing a newly fitted Ideal boiler.
Bedrooms Two and Three and Cloakroom Bedroom three (once a dressing room) is over 20 ft. long and has two sash windows overlooking the front. Opposite on the other side of the corridor, an archway leads past a Georgian staircase with a pained handrail and balusters and an understairs cupboard, rising to the second floor. On the left is a two piece cloakroom with a WC with a high-level cistern.
Bedroom two, has the same canted bay profile as the drawing room beneath but with a single curve-topped sash window overlooking the garden (some panes are bevelled). On either side of the window in the angled walls are original built-in cupboards with glazed, double upper doors and cupboards beneath. There is a further original built-in linen cupboard with shelves. Bedroom Four and Bathroom
Bedroom four was the original principal bedroom with windows in a canted bay echoing those of the dining room below with the same pull-up shutters from panelling underneath. There is an original cupboard by the door; further panelled door opens to a built-in wardrobe with hanging space and storage. Outside this room is the second Georgian painted staircase to the second floor.
Past a further landing storage cupboard and down a step, a lower corridor accesses the modern bathroom with double sash windows and window seats overlooking the front. The five piece suite includes a contemporary roll top bath, double basins in vanity units, and a walk-in shower.
Bedroom Five and Bathroom Outside the bathroom is an airing cupboard with two hot water tanks. Steps down continue past the back stairs (by the kitchen), to a small landing area with early leaded casement windows overlooking the rear garden. Opposite is a newly fitted three piece bathroom with a panel bath, tongue-and-groove panelling, and access to a loft.
Bedroom five, like all nine bedrooms, is a double room. It has early leaded casement windows with a stripped oak window sill, overlooking the gravelled terrace area of the garden. There are exposed structural beams.
Bedroom Six A landing at the top of the staircase from outside bedroom two has an exposed beam and a Velux window above an open storage area. Bedroom six (similar in floor space to bedroom two) has a single sash window in the centre of the canted bay (directly beneath the crow stepped gable) overlooking the garden.
Bedrooms Seven, Eight and Nine and Shower Room A staircase outside bedroom four leads to a landing accessing three more second floor double bedrooms and a storage cupboard. Bedroom eight, measuring over 15 ft. by 14 ft., is accessed via two doors off the landing and has one decorative trefoiled window which is at the top of the semi-octagonal pavilion overlooking the front. (The two flanking lancet-shaped windows in the canted walls, seen on the exterior are painted by design or due to window tax.) Bedrooms seven and nine are built under the roof and are almost identical in size (over 14 ft. by over 12 ft.). Bedroom nine has a Velux window and double-doored eaves storage linen cupboard; bedroom seven has a dormer window and two eaves storage cupboards the larger of which has double doors. All three bedrooms share a three piece shower room with a window overlooking the garden and a storage cupboard.
Outbuildings .
Coach House The Georgian coach house (included in the listing) is at the north end of the house. Built of stone with a casement, and two sash windows, one arched, overlooking the front, it has a date stone above the arched window inscribed EB, 1796. The building is an approximate square which is divided into an over 17 ft. by 16 ft. coach house with double wooden doors, a further window and two dual aspect potting sheds. The ground floor has Victorian tiles and there are original iron hay mangers and staging in the potting sheds. An internal door in the coach house accesses stairs to the two first floor loft rooms (one measuring 24 ft. by 16 ft.), under a slate, half hipped roof, with a door and a window in the west gable end. There is a further potting shed with the gardeners WC at right angles to the coach house, attached to the utility room by a wall. Water and electricity are connected. Subject to planning, the couch house could be converted to a self-contained annexe.
Stable Block Set back and south of the coach house is the stable block. This wooden framed, timber clad building has a felt tiled roof (new on the rear) and comprises two stalls with stable doors and windows, and a tack room. The floors are concreted and extend beyond the front beneath the overhanging roof. Water and electricity are connected.
Garaging, Wood Stores and Green House The two garages are built end-to-end, both with up and over doors. The older, larger garage is constructed with a stone garden end and has three windows and a personnel door. The more recent garage, accessed directly from the drive, is brick-built with a side window and has a wood store attached.
The second wood store is connected to the house and can be accessed from a door beneath the main staircase; over time this has proved convenient storing both wine and wood.
The green house, near the kitchen garden, has staging and is divided at one end.
Gardens The village road with a cattle grid leads to double, electrically operated metal gates which open to the drive approaching the property. This widens to become a carriage driveway with a circular, planted central bed, creating a turning circle opposite the coach house and garage. A path leads to a paved area with a deep, established herbaceous border with clipped box immediately in front of the house, overlooking the front lawn. The paving reaches the front door and continues to a gate accessing the church with a boundary of trees. Beyond the front lawn is the tennis court.
The rear garden has a stone paved terrace accessed from the double doors in the rear hallway and a further gravel terrace overlooks the rear garden. A gravelled courtyard formed by the coach house and potting shed is accessible from the boot room door and leads to an operational well with water for the nearby kitchen and cutting gardens. The main, formal rear garden is laid to lawn with deep borders with established planting shrubs and herbaceous and walled boundaries. There is an orchard with apple and pear trees - and gooseberries. The views from the rear garden extend across protected neighbouring parkland of the Courteenhall Estate.
Paddocks There are approaching 3.4 acres of paddock land arranged on both sides of the driveway, enclosed either by estate fencing or post-and-rail fencing. The paddock to the south side is surrounded by neighbouring parkland.
Tennis Court The carpet tennis court, beyond gardens at the front of the house, is partially enclosed by clipped box hedging and surrounded by lawn.
Situation Courteenhall is a privately owned estate village and is only 11 minutes drive from the former market town of Towcester. Towcester has a range of boutique shops, leisure centre, rugby club, restaurants, supermarkets and a doctors surgery.
Courteenhall is known for its beautiful countryside and historic buildings. One of the most notable buildings in Courteenhall is the Courteenhall House, which was built in the 18th century and is now a Grade I listed building. The house is surrounded by a stunning parkland, which is open to the public during certain times of the year.
