See inside enchanting Gotten Manor on the Isle of Wight

First recorded as an established smallholding, the Grade II-listed manor has been an inhabited farm for at least the last thousand years.

From its Jutish origins – a Nordic tribe who settled in Britain around 388 AD – the house and farm buildings have evolved over the centuries, bearing the history of the British Isles over the last millennia manifest in stone.

READ MORE: Rightmove reveals the most viewed homes in 2021

The east end of the house was predominately constructed in the 13th century, with a second house built in the 17th century and a small yard separating them.

After the construction of the second house little changed until the mid-19th century, when Gotten Manor was passed from a landowner and merchant in Imperial Russia to a descendant of his, Lieutenant W H Dawes, who fought in the Crimea.

Dawes joined the two buildings together, creating the entrance hall and the library, as well as extensively remodelling the garden side of the house, establishing the aesthetics of the house as it stands today.

Now occupying a very manageable plot of 4.5 acres, many of the outbuildings, vital to its former use as a mixed-use farm, have been converted to self-contained accommodation.

Totally sheltered from the nearest road and set within its own land, the sweeping drive first passes the long barn and the former cart house, now secondary accommodation.

This leads to the main entrance, which is arranged around a courtyard with parking for several cars and a double garage. A sunken walled, fruit garden is the focal point of the courtyard and features a charming apple tree along with many other mature fruit trees and shrubs.

READ MORE: Beech Grove doctors surgery up for sale for £500,000

The main entrance is a simple affair with a covered porch leading to a large stone hallway, formerly a yard between the 13th-century building to the left and the larger 16th-century building to the right. Evidence of its former outdoor setting can be seen in the still-functioning 17th-century water pump with a medieval stone basin.

The country kitchen is home to an Aga, extensive raw-wood worksurfaces, double butler sinks and terracotta floor tiles.

A service hatch connects the kitchen and dining room, the latter of which features an inglenook fireplace with a wood burner, stripped back to stone. An art nouveau-inspired wallpaper by Farrow & Ball lines the south wall, where double doors open onto the lawn.

Lying adjacent to the dining room are the library to the left and a snug to the right, both of which also have double doors opening onto the lawn. The snug is lit from both south and west and features a large fireplace with an 18th-century stone surround and pediment. The library is lined with fitted bookshelves and also has a wood burner.

Two bedrooms and a nursery lie on the first floor, all large enough to accommodate double beds, along with the large, family bathroom.

The main bedroom has a contemporary en-suite bathroom and also features a bath in the bedroom, with views of the cliffs and sea. On the second floor are two similarly large bedrooms.

The 13th-century wing encompasses a large, stone-floored drawing room featuring a medieval inglenook fireplace with a wood burner, bread oven and the original ‘copper’, a pre-industrial water heater.

Adjacent to the drawing-room is a tremendous, double-height space currently used as a breakfast room. This leads to one of the two large bedrooms above with limewashed walls, floorboards underfoot and en-suite bathrooms featuring whimsical located baths.

The secondary accommodation is made up of the former cart house and milk house.

The milk house now contains three bedrooms, a living area and a kitchen. More contemporary in aesthetic than the main house, large apertures provide the rooms with tremendous amounts of natural light and frame staggering views of the surrounding landscape.

The renovations made to the cart house are similar in character; it is now two separate dwellings, both of which have a large, open-plan kitchen/living space and two bedrooms.

There are numerous other outbuildings with potential for further development, most notably the long barn, a vast, late-medieval structure with a number of potential uses.

Gotten Manor has commanding views of the coastline to the south yet is invisible from any road - a secluded haven of tranquillity. The formal garden lies to the south of the house and has a large lawn with a well. Mature borders line the lawn and lead to a kitchen garden and a swimming pool beyond, currently in need of recommissioning.

A wildflower meadow separates the long barn and the main house from the cart house, as well as further gardens among the former orchards.

READ MORE: Inside the cheapest property for sale on the Isle of Wight

SUMMARY

Location: Gotten Manor, Isle of Wight
Guide Price: £2,000,000
Agent: Inigo, London
Contact: 020 3687 3071