CHETTLE House is a Grade I listed manor house for sale with national estate agent Strutt & Parker at a guide price of £3,950,000. Set on the edge of the hamlet of Chettle, in the heart of the Cranborne Chase, and now for sale for the first time in 180 years, there is an exciting opportunity to restore the house to its former glory.

The manor comprises nine bedrooms, two separate apartments and impressive vaulted basement, the Keeper’s Cottage and 117 acres of formal gardens, paddock, parkland and woodland.

The current owners of Chettle House, Mr and Mrs Peter Bourke, are selling in order to downsize. Mrs Bourke said: “We are downsizing as the house is simply too big for us as a family and deserves to be looked after by someone who can lavish love and money to restore it to its former glory.”

Charlie Evans, the estate agent in charge of the sale from Strutt & Parker added: “Rarely does a house of this importance come to the market.

It is an outstanding specimen of English Baroque architecture.”

Set in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the village is lined with thatched cottages.

Recorded in the Domesday Book as Ceotel, the villages’ original Old English name means kettle, referring to the location of the village in a deep valley surrounded by hills.

The Cathedral City of Salisbury offers further educational, shopping and recreational facilities together with a mainline railway station, London Waterloo being approximately 90 minutes away.

Historically, a nunnery was established at Chettle under the patronage of Henry I in about 1106. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the estate passed to the Crown until Elizabeth I sold it to the Chafin family. In 1710 George Chafin, MP and Ranger of the Cranborne Chase, commissioned Chettle House to be built in order to replace the existing Elizabethan manor and it is believed that Thomas Archer was the architect and the Bastard brothers of nearby Blandford were the builders.

The house was purchased by the present family 1846.

Contact Charlie Evans, Strutt & Parker Salisbury, 41 Milford Street, Salisbury SP1 2BP on 01722 344 010 salisbury@ struttandparker.com.