Park Farm

Introduction to Park Farm

Under the original clay tiles and with unadorned rendered elevations on a brick plinth, Park Farm was built in the 1930s and has the roof line and arched feature window over the stairwell typical of this era. The current owners added an extension in 1990, which is sympathetic to the original architectural style, and contributes to the external appearance of the building. Particularly notable, however, is the situation of the property which, above a sweep of gently inclining farmland, has views from the rear over the south facing garden, towards paddocks and over fields with distant spinneys. From the front aspect, there are borrowed vistas from the extensive neighbouring parkland of the Stowe estate. Despite being almost a century old, the property has been updated for a 21st-century lifestyle. There are discreet solar thermal pipes on the roof heating the water, the drive is alarmed to signal arriving visitors, there is a CCTV monitoring of the outbuildings, and an internal alarm.

About the house

The house has 3,192 sq. ft. of accommodation over two floors with two contemporary staircases. On the ground floor there is a glazed entrance porch, a utility room with a cloakroom, a kitchen/breakfast room and an entrance hall with the formal front door. The dining room opens to a garden room, and leads to the family room with a staircase to bedroom two on the first floor. Also on the first floor is a principal bedroom with an en suite shower room, a family bathroom and two further double bedrooms. Throughout the house there are hardwood, double glazed windows, wooden skirting boards and plaster cornicing.

Ground Floor

A glazed stable door in a glazed entry porch opens to a further stable door accessing the stone-floored utility room. A hidden cupboard contains the water softener on the right and opposite is a cloakroom with an obscured window, a hand basin, a WC and the Vaillant boiler. The utility room leads to the kitchen/breakfast room which accesses the entrance hallway with the original front door (currently unused) and the main staircase. The dining room and the sitting room lead off this hallway, and both reception rooms have doors to the garden room. The sitting room accesses the family room (currently housing a 3/4 Snooker table).

Utility/Boot Room and Kitchen/Breakfast Room

The scullery has a window overlooking the drive, under which there is a Samsung washing machine and base units with a granite effect roll-top worksurface inset with a stainless steel sink. There are coat hooks and a heated towel rail. This leads to the utility room overlooking the front, with floor to ceiling built-in storage cupboards with shelves and hanging rails, and space and plumbing for a tumble dryer and two larder sized fridges. The utility room accesses the dual aspect kitchen/breakfast room, overlooking the front and rear gardens, with an understairs cupboard. The kitchen is fitted with a variety of wood effect base and wall units, with tiled walls and a roll-top worksurface with an inset stainless steel sink. Integrated appliances include a Neff combination oven with a microwave above, an inset Neff hob with four rings with an extractor over, a Neff dishwasher and an under-counter Bosch fridge. There is room for a table seating six/eight people overlooking the front.

Dining room and Garden Room

Accessed from the hallway, the dining room has sliding doors leading to the garden room. The double glazed garden room, built of hardwood on a brick plinth, runs along much of the back of the house leading to the terrace and accessed from both the dining room and the sitting room. Outside the dining room it is shaped to accommodate a circular dining table, then runs in a narrower form adjacent to the sitting room. Due to the sun-trap effect at the back of the house during the summer, the current owners exchanged the once glass roof with a solid copper coated roof to deflect the sun; there is a large ceiling fan over the dining area.

Snug and Sitting Room Area

The snug is divided from the sitting room by a square opening in what was once an internal wall. It has French doors accessing the garden room and windows overlooking the front. The sitting room area runs the full depth of the house, with a window over the front and sliding doors opening directly to the terrace at the rear of the house, beyond the garden room. There is a modern exposed brick fire breast, inset with two small metal niches, and with a brick lintel, housing a multi-fuel burner on a granite hearth. Right of the chimney breast is a display cabinet with glass shelves, which is glazed on both sides, looking into the billiard room (this was once a window in an outside wall).

Family Room and Office Area

A new glazed oak door accesses the oak floored family room which comprises the 2005/6 extension. In keeping with the original 1930s house, the extension has a feature brick chimney stack and a steep clay roof turning up at the bottom (motifs of the architect Edwin Lutyens who died in 1940). It has an arched window in the gable end echoing the window over the stairs. Internally the family room is semi vaulted into the roof and has partially exposed oak beams. A multi fuel burner stands on a York stone hearth, the external flue joining the chimney breast at a raised level. There is a timber stable door to the terrace and a hand-built oak staircase with chamfered balusters rises with one turn to access a bedroom two on the first floor of the main house. An office area, with bi-fold doors to the rear terrace and windows to each side, is segregated from the rest of the room by low, oak balustrading. The whole extension disposes itself towards being used as an independent living area.

First Floor

A modern handmade oak staircase rises from the entrance hall to the first floor where there is a galleried landing and an arched window over the stair well with views overlooking the front and the Stowe estate. There is a loft hatch above and an airing cupboard with hanging space, behind which is the manifold for the solar thermal water heating system. The landing accesses a corridor with two windows overlooking the front and accessing bedrooms three and four and bedroom two at the end.

Principal Bedroom, En suite Shower Room, and Family Bathroom

The dual aspect principal bedroom has double windows overlooking the drive and bi-fold doors which access a balcony above the glazed entrance porch, which has a glass balustrade (fitted after photography), and new protective flooring. Views from the south-facing balcony take in the gardens, paddocks, and farmland beyond. There is a built-in pine dressing table and floor-to ceiling pine wardrobes, which also access deep eaves storage space behind. The en suite, with an obscured window, has a power shower, a WC a basin and a heated towel rail. The four piece family bathroom, with a laminate floor, has a window overlooking the rear garden, a corner power shower, a panelled bath, a WC and a basin.

Bedroom Two and En Suite, Bedrooms Three and Four

Bedroom two is accessed from a modern oak panelled door from the family room staircase and a door into the landing of the main house. There is a cupboard housing the water tank and the pump for the shower. It has a window overlooking the rear garden. The en suite has a power shower, a WC, basin in a vanity unit with low storage cupboards, and drawers and a window overlooking garden (not obscured). Along the corridor bedrooms three and four both have windows overlooking the rear garden. Bedroom three has painted built-in storage cupboards.

Outbuildings

Agricultural Building and Stable Block

The 6,485 sq. ft. agricultural building, including the stable block, is a single span, metal framed barn over a concrete floor with a corrugated pitched roof, breeze block lower walls and Yorkshire boarding. It originally housed cattle and to the left of the main aisle, the low concrete pens have been retained, to the right are two workshops. The building has LED lights, and mains water and power connected. Abutting the side of the agricultural building and overlooking the paddocks, is the timber stable block which has seven, 12 ft. by 12 ft. stables (one once a tack room), the nearest of which to the farm house has a glazed window and is used as a kennel. It has a concrete floor which extends to the front of the stables, and mains water and power connected.

The Grounds

Park Farm is accessed through a low brick wall at the front with double wooden gates which open into the stamped concrete stone effect drive, leading to the house on the left, to the agricultural building on the right and sloping down to double five-bar gates accessing the stable block, paddock and land beyond. There is ample parking for cars on the drive. Immediately to the right of the drive are lawned areas. The garden at the front of the house is mainly laid to lawn with a paved area around the formal front door.

The Rear Garden

At the rear there is a paved terrace adjacent to the back of the house, edged with reclaimed, dressed granite stones. Because the terrace is a sun trap, there is a metal-framed gazebo with a hard roof and a butcher’s blind above the sitting room sliding doors. Steps lead down to more paved areas and to the main lawn, with a mature sycamore tree, which drops down to an orchard (mainly established apple trees) and the hard surfaced tennis court. Below this is an area of grassland, contained by beech hedging, which is the size of a dressage arena and designed for schooling horses. A path leads from the terrace to a modern, fully specified LPG bulk tank and a green house beyond which are raised vegetable beds, there is a decorative mixed hedge. The garden has established trees and areas of herbaceous borders.

Paddocks and Fields

The 18 acres of farmland is located to the rear of the property, gardens and barns. Immediately beyond the gardens there is a grassland paddock. To the south of the paddock the majority of the land is currently arable and could be seeded to paddock. There is a spinney partly belonging to the farm and shared with a neighbouring farm. There are numerous indigenous hedges. The farmland has numerous rides, particularly along the headlands, and there are various cross-country jumps built into the landscape which accord with the schooling area below the tennis court.

Location of Park Farm

Park Farm is situated in the north west of Aylesbury Vale, about three miles north-west of the county town of Buckingham. Turning west off the locally renowned Stowe Avenue, a minor road forms a southern boundary of the Stowe estate and the northern boundary of Park Farm. The property is in the centre of Buckinghamshire farmland, local communities being small hamlets. In the winter, when the trees in the estate are bare, there are views from the front of the Park Farm of the Palladian building of Stowe School and other monuments visible from the fields. From the rear of the house the farm drops down to the ‘back road’, the most southernly boundary of the farm, which is obscured by established hedgerows; farmland extends to each side of the garden.

Situation

Stowe is a civil parish and former village about two miles northwest of Buckingham. It is approached using the avenue that links Buckingham with Stowe Park. It is home to Stowe School a public school for pupils aged 13–18, National Trust Stowe Gardens and Stowe golf club. Boycott Farm shop is located on Welsh Lane and the hamlett of Chackmore is within a one mile walk which is home to St James and St John Church of England Primary School and The Queens Head public house. The market town of Buckingham (2 miles), offers a range of shopping and leisure facilities, a library, and dental and GP surgeries. Regular bus services connect to Milton Keynes, Aylesbury, Bicester and Oxford. Stowe is also in catchment for The Royal Latin grammar school also in Buckingham.