Cricket fans glued to the Ashes should spend the tea break calculating their commute from rural Lincolnshire – if they can stump up £1.75 million.
Grade II-listed Seas End Hall is a picture-perfect late Georgian house set in 24 acres of grounds dotted with stables, storerooms and a coach house that could make a handsome holiday let.
But instead of the traditional swimming pool or tennis courts, the country pad has a full-size cricket pitch complete with smart striped lawn and pavilion.
Owner Colin bought the house and surrounding land two decades ago when he moved to the area to set up his farming business. “It was a ruin, with all the windows smashed and spray paint on the walls. I did it up over two years, starting with the avenues and the planting.
“Then we took the roof off, which ended up costing four times what we’d been originally quoted.
“Everybody thought I was mad – me included for some of the time – but it was a beautiful house. It had been split into two, and hadn’t been lived in as a single home for quite some time. I wanted to create an oasis within the setting, and that’s what it’s become.”
Though petite in country estate terms, the main house has eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and five reception rooms, including a capacious kitchen with a chequered quarry tiled floor and an Aga set into an old hearth.
The combined footprint of the mini estate, including all outbuildings, totals almost 10,000 square feet.
The grounds include a parterre with formal dwarf hedging, a kitchen garden and a greenhouse, plus working stables and a large paddock for horses – known to riders as a manège.
On the opposite side of the house is the cricket ground.
“A friend and I who were mad on cricket had always dreamed of having our own cricket pitch and so I thought it was a good idea at the time to put one in. We levelled all the ground and put the square in properly with the same company that laid [home of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club] Trent Bridge.
“At first it was just friends and sandwiches and then all of a sudden people got more serious and started playing league cricket. We’ve had all sorts of invitational sides and friendlies – it’s been lots and lots of fun.”
Colin moved out of the house with his wife and children six years ago, and it has since been home to a colleague who oversees the day-to-day running of the business.
“There was a point where no one was really playing at the pitch and then [local club] Spalding’s first team approached us three or four years ago and asked if they could use it. Now there’s proper cricket being played there all the time, which is great.”
The other big draw is the old coach house, which itself has almost 3,000 square feet of potential living space.
“We never got round to knowing what we wanted it for, so I think it sits there as a project for somebody else. It’s those classic options – is it a party room? A granny annexe? Or more stabling even, which is what it was in the first place.”
Located a couple of miles north of the village of Moulton, the property is a half an hour drive from Peterborough, where the fastest trains will deliver you into King’s Cross in under 50 minutes.
Jan von Draczek, a director at Fine & Country, said: “It is incredibly rare to have a stunning manicured cricket pitch and pavilion beautifully screened in the grounds of your own home. It’s also a highly social feature if you wish to partake, observe or socialise with friends and family over the summer months.”
Colin will be sad to let the house go – his colleague’s circumstances have changed and it seems the right moment to sell up – but says “it’s time for someone else to enjoy it now”.
Seas End Hall is for sale for £1.75 million through Fine & Country’s Rutland, Stamford & South Lincolnshire office.
