A substantial family home in a delightful rural setting, well-placed for road and rail communications.
Wealdgate is a substantial family house, with potential to update and extend, set in attractive gardens of about 1.8 acres, adjacent land of about 3.6 acres and a further meadow of about 3.3 acres.
Set well back off Faircrouch Lane, Wealdgate combines an idyllic rural setting with the benefits of proximity to the highly desirable village of Wadhurst and its thriving community and a direct rail service to London.
The current owners, in residence for over 30 years, have enjoyed and sympathetically maintained the land, extensively cultivating fruit and vegetables for their own use and keeping a variety of livestock.
The house
Wealdgate, at around 3,290 sq ft, is a welcoming and versatile family house with great potential to remodel and extend the living accommodation to a contemporary layout and specification, subject to any necessary permissions. Built in the 1930s this attractive weather-boarded house nestles within its grounds at the top of a small valley.
Configured at present with the southern wing as an informal annexe, with its own entrance, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms, the overall layout of the house is essentially as originally constructed. The front door opens into a spacious entrance hall, with the well-sized kitchen/breakfast room and a reception room opening off to the right and three reception rooms (one currently the kitchen to the annexe) spanning the westerly side of the house with views over the gently sloping rear garden. A conservatory opens off the secondary kitchen via French doors, and the opportunity exists to open this side of the house out further to connect to a more substantial terrace or balcony for enjoyment of the wonderful and unspoilt rural setting.
Overlooking the front garden, the kitchen/breakfast room offers plenty of open-plan family space and benefits from a sizeable utility room with a further store room, detached from the house but under a covered access.
Upstairs the impression of space and generous proportions continues. Stairs rise from the entrance hall, via a half landing, to an equally spacious landing. With two bedrooms to the front and three overlooking the garden to the rear, together with a family bathroom and a separate w.c., the well-proportioned accommodation is balanced and well-lit.
Outside
Wealdgate owns the lane that leads westwards from Faircrouch Lane, dropping downwards between the house's rear garden to one side and its paddocks to the other. Ownership of the lane passes to the property beyond at the westerly boundary of Wealdgate's woodland and, with the benefit of a right of vehicle access, onwards to the meadow of about 3.3 acres.
A public footpath, forming a short section of the Sussex Border Path, connecting Thorney Island in the west to Rye in the east, runs along this lane, crosses into the meadow and exits via a wooden footbridge over the small stream that bounds the westernmost border of the land.
Wealdgate's land is a particular feature of the property. Across the lane, beyond the double garage, barn storage and stables are the paddocks. With some managed woodland and an extensive fox-proofed poultry enclosure, this area is currently given over to well-maintained vegetable beds, two commercial-quality polytunnels, apple and pear orchards and soft fruit.
The house's gardens, extending to about 1.8 acres, lie to three sides. The larger, west-facing garden, mainly well-drained lawn with mature shrubs and tree-lined boundaries, falls away westwards alongside the lane towards a tennis court, requiring resurfacing, at its foot, and the smaller garden, separates the house from Faircrouch Lane with further lawn interspersed with shrubs and bushes.
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