Kingshaugh House, East Markham
Kingshaugh House, East Markham
- Price:
- £725,000
- Bedrooms:
- 8
- Location:
- Nottinghamshire, NG22 0SR
- Tenure:
- Freehold
PRICE DROP
In the 800th Anniversary year of its building, Kingshaugh Manor represents a unique and challenging opportunity to further the resurrection of an extremely significant survival of English architectural history. Site of an Iron Age Fort, (known as Kingshaugh Camp), Ancient Royal Manor, Nottinghamshire hunting lodge and chapel for King John, it is now a substantial, Restoration double-pile country house. We are very pleased to offer for sale of this extremely significant and important house, on the market for the first time in many years.
Kingshaugh, listed grade II and set in grounds of 4.75 acres, has some fifteen rooms in total, including a large farmhouse kitchen, three further reception rooms and five first floor rooms, including the bathroom. The second floor has four large rooms, which could easily be converted to bedroom accommodation, and one quarter of the house has a cellar accessible from the central passageway.
The current owners, who purchased Kingshaugh Manor in 1988, embarked on a programme of restoration and saved the house from dilapidation, importing 269 panes of glass, 10,000 bricks, several thousand tiles, 34 window frames, four oak doors and 25 tons of flagstones. The house has been completely rewired and plumbed and fireplaces have been reinstated, retaining 17th century plasterwork and paintwork. During the last nine years Kingshaugh has been open to the public during which time it has won numerous awards.
In the extensive grounds, listed as an ancient monument, wide stretches of grass and lawn weave between clumps of ancient trees, including horse chestnut and copper beech festooned with mistletoe, recalling the site's early origin. The stream that runs at the bottom of the terrace on which the house stands, originally formed part of the Old Moat. It contains petrifying springs and various species of fish. The many fragments unearthed by archaeologists in the grounds, now held in the manor house, range from Neolithic flint tools to Roman artefacts to clay pipes from the 18th century.
Kingshaugh is situated between the villages of East Markham and Darlton, is within easy reach of the national rail network and the East Midlands road network.
Kingshaugh, listed grade II and set in grounds of 4.75 acres, has some fifteen rooms in total, including a large farmhouse kitchen, three further reception rooms and five first floor rooms, including the bathroom. The second floor has four large rooms, which could easily be converted to bedroom accommodation, and one quarter of the house has a cellar accessible from the central passageway.
The current owners, who purchased Kingshaugh Manor in 1988, embarked on a programme of restoration and saved the house from dilapidation, importing 269 panes of glass, 10,000 bricks, several thousand tiles, 34 window frames, four oak doors and 25 tons of flagstones. The house has been completely rewired and plumbed and fireplaces have been reinstated, retaining 17th century plasterwork and paintwork. During the last nine years Kingshaugh has been open to the public during which time it has won numerous awards.
In the extensive grounds, listed as an ancient monument, wide stretches of grass and lawn weave between clumps of ancient trees, including horse chestnut and copper beech festooned with mistletoe, recalling the site's early origin. The stream that runs at the bottom of the terrace on which the house stands, originally formed part of the Old Moat. It contains petrifying springs and various species of fish. The many fragments unearthed by archaeologists in the grounds, now held in the manor house, range from Neolithic flint tools to Roman artefacts to clay pipes from the 18th century.
Kingshaugh is situated between the villages of East Markham and Darlton, is within easy reach of the national rail network and the East Midlands road network.
Further History
The word Kingshaugh is of Saxon derivation meaning 'King's enclosure'. In the reign of Edward I Kingshaugh was described 'The Markes and bounds that goeth about the desmayne wood of our Lord the King and the ground of Kingshaghe'. This part of Sherwood Forest provided valuable common pastureland for the local peasantry and Thoroton tells us that 'The men of Derleton and Ragnall had pasture for their cattle in the wood of Kingshaugh as they were wont in the times of King Henry II'.
In or around 1184 the future King John enclosed 320 acres to create a deer park, the total cost alleged to have amounted to £550 4s 11d. On a dry mound overlooking the low-lying marshes and river meadows ('haugh' denotes a low-lying meadow in a river valley), he constructed a substantial lodge to accommodate his hunting parties. Kingshaugh was one of the mansions that he fortified in readiness to defend himself against his brother, King Richard I, who intended to return to England from the Crusades to seize his possessions by force. The itinerary of John records several visits to Kingshaugh and an entry in the Patent Rolls is dated from the site, dated August 28th 1212.
The Close Rolls also have an interesting entry to the effect that, on April 1st 1215, the King orders the Barons of the Exchequer to refund Brian de Insular, the custodian, one mark, "what he spent on one chalice and one vestment, and an altar ornament in our chapel at Kingshaugh". In 1229 Baldwin or Brian de Insular also had a grant of the Hall of Kingshaugh to him and his heirs.
Henry III gave Kingshaugh to Simon de Mounteford, Earl of Leicester and in 1258 Gadfe de Langley had it. By 1313 Isabella, who had been the wife of John de Castre, had the King's (Edward II) pardon for the transgression which she made in acquiring, together with her husband, the Manor of Kingshaugh. Edward III committed 'to Roger Truelove the custody of the land and holdings with their belonging at Kingshaugh in Co. Notts' and an inquisition post mortem of 1382 has "William de Cresse and Margaret his wife to settle their manor of Kingshaugh on themselves for life.
The next owners were believed to be the Merings, a William Mering of Mering had possession in 1522 and it remained with this family under a lease from the King until it was purchased outright by Augustine Erle, a descendant of the Mering family, in 1604. Thoroton in 1687 confirms that 'Kingshawe was the inheritance of Sir Richard Earle of Stragglethorpe, the great grandchild of the aforementioned Augustine Earl'. Sir Richard died unmarried, age 25, and left his estate to his mother's brother, William Welby of Denton in whose family it remained until 1915, when Sir Charles Welby, of Denton, Grantham sold the estate outright to George William Watson.
On the afternoon of Saturday October 12th 1929 Messrs. Henry Spencer and Sons offered to public auction at their sale rooms, Retford, an important historic and agricultural estate in the parishes of Darlton and East Markham, including the Manor or Lordship of Kingshaugh. The estate contained an area of 438 acres and comprised two good farms. The second lot was Kingshaugh Manor.
Kingshaugh remained in private hands until the 1940s when the Co-op Dairy bought the land and accommodated farm workers in the house. By the time the current owners bought Kingshaugh Manor about twenty years ago it had been empty for nineteen years, inhabited only by the cattle straying from the adjacent farmland with vegetation growing in every room.
ARCHITECTURE The building standing on this important site today is a late-17th century house, incorporating masonry from the earlier structures, with minor alterations in the 18th and 19th centuries. Constructed from a mellow red brick with coursed rubblework Kingshaugh is a symmetrical double-pile building of five bays over two storeys plus a garret. Massive Tudor chimneystacks rise dramatically into the sky.
Parts of the earlier hunting lodge were incorporated into the present house, among which is the massive seven foot thick spinal wall separating the front and rear bays. Kingshaugh is a text book early-17th century manor-farmhouse, based on John Thorpe's late-16th century mansion designs. Thorpe has often taken on the mantle of the being the first named 'architect' in England. Both end garrets have single bullseye window openings and each of the four corners of the house mark a cardinal point on the compass.
Room Details
- Property Type:
- House
- Number of Bedrooms:
- 8
- Property Size:
- - 3148 square feet
- - 292 square metres
Ground Floor
Dining Room: 15'10'' x 18'10'' (4.8m x 5.6m) Workshop: 18'9'' x 15'9'' (5.7m x 4.8m) Kitchen/Breakfast Room : 17'11'' x 12'11'' (5.5m x 3.9m) Drawing Room : 14'8'' x 14'8'' (4.5m x 4.5m)
First Floor
Sitting Room: 18'3'' x 14'9'' (5.6m x 4.5m) Bedroom One: 18'7'' x 16'4'' (5.7m x 5.0m) Bedroom Three: 16'1'' x 15'1'' (4.9m x 4.6m) Bedroom Four: 16'8'' x 16'4'' (5.1m x 5.0m)