Eastmoor Lodge is a wonderful rural home with a huge amount of character and charm - and extensive, stunning gardens. Brian Page takes a look around.

IT’S a horrible grey day, a spiteful, spitty rain stinging the air and a wicked cold wind blowing icily across the fields.

It’s such a shame, I say to Eddie Prince as he greets me at the door of Eastmoor Lodge, on the edges of the village of Sutton-on-the-Forest. I was really looking forward to walking around the gardens.

“Oh, there’s plenty to see in the house,” Eddie replies. “Maybe it will clear up in a bit,” he adds optimistically.

The weather is relevant to my visit – the sprawling, beautifully arranged gardens and grounds surrounding Eastmoor Lodge are a highlight of this home. They look, at least on the brochure pictures, simply stunning. Today they are glimpsed only through the wet andraincurtain.

But then, as it turns out, Eddie is absolutely right – there is more to this home than superb gardens.

Much, much more… Starting in the kitchen/breakfast room, which lies at the heart of the home. Here, Eddie and his wife Sue begin the story of how they created their hugely extended and improved house.

“It was basically a traditional 1960s bungalow when we bought it,” Eddie says, “and we knew that we would want to develop it.”

And develop it they did. Working closely with an “excellent” local builder, Eddie and Sue drew up plans which would totally transform the original building.

The results of that collaboration are in evidence in virtually every room of this house – including some wonderful tucked away spaces that were created from what would otherwise have been lost loft space.

But, enough of the waxing lyrical, let us take you on the tour – and be prepared because there is an awful lot to see.

The breakfast kitchen is a delightful, warm, cosy and comfortable area, running to some 26ft and with views out across to open fields (a fine pastoral scene with sheep grazing behind waving trees).

It’s dressed with a range of rich oak Shaker-style wall and base units with contrasting granite work surfaces over and with appliances including fridge, dishwasher, microwave and a generous double Aga Range with gas hob and double oven.

A breakfast bar separates the kitchen from the dining area which, like all of the ground floor rooms, comes with impressive engineered oak flooring (with under-floor heating so it not only looks smart but feels toasty).

A staircase runs from here up into one of those creative spaces, a hideaway area ideal as a further sitting room, entertainment room or perhaps a home office.

“This would just have been dead space,” Eddie says, “so we put in the staircase, opened it up and now it’s a very useful room.”

As it turns out there is also another similarly created space on the other side of the house, ideal as a studio or a teenager’s hideaway. (At this point I am beginning to understand Eddie’s sense of understatement when he told me there was plenty to see in the house).

A summary of the other groundfloor rooms in the main part of the house (yes, there is an annexe which is almost a separate ‘wing’ but more of that in a moment) would include a sparkling, sunny dining room, an office, two bedrooms and a house bathroom.

There is also a rather splendid master bedroom with walk-in dressing area and a large en-suite bathroom and with the sleeping area having an arched ceiling with exposed beams and French doors opening out onto a side patio.

Next comes one of those startling discovery moments…produced when we walk into the jaw-dropping lounge.

It’s a stunning room with a great high ceiling, light dancing in through large Velux windows above and French doors and windows to the back, providing a great view of the terrace and gardens.

But the real feature here is how the whole of one wall has been given over to exposed brickwork in which is set a log-burning stove under a huge curved oak mantel beam set into the brick.

Astonishingly, this character feature had actually been plastered over and hidden from view before being rescued during the building of this extended area – another fine piece of imaginative work.

The stove plays its part in the heating of the house, Eddie explains but with solar on the roof and underfloor heating, it’s only really needed for a short time on winter nights.

“And we do have our own free supply of wood,” Sue says with a smile and a nod towards the garden (where, at last, the rain seems to have eased).

But there is still a bit more to see in this never-ending house – in the form of the previously mentioned separate wing. It’s reached by walking through a long utility room behind the kitchen, slipping past a garden room and skirting around the huge garage and then into the annexe.

Here there is a guest suite with two versatile rooms, either living room downstairs and bedroom above or vice versa with the top room giving you somewhere to sit and look out over the gardens.

Ah, the gardens. Eddie’s earlier optimism has proved well-founded. As we step outside the rain has stopped but there is a still a bit of a bite in the air (although the trees and hedges that frame the boundaries have done their job of keeping the wind at bay).

Looking down from the house you see just how extensive these grounds are (the plot as a whole sits on some 2.2 acres). They include rolling lawned areas, a large pond (more like a lake actually), patio and terraced areas, meandering paths and streams and a host of mature trees, including silver birch and weeping willows.

The gardens are, like the house itself, big and beautiful and with immense character and charm.

And both Eddie and Sue admit that it will be a wrench to leave after almost ten years of happy living here. But the couple have sold the nearby Goose Wood holiday park, which they have run for more than a decade, and are looking for pastures new.

“This really would be an ideal home for a family,” Eddie says. “A family who could make the most of all this space we have here.”

At a glance

Reception rooms: Six

Bedrooms: 4/5

Gardens: Stunning, extensive gardens on a 2.2-acre plot including terrace and patio areas, lawns, paths, streams and a large pond.

Wow factor: Internally the quite brilliant living room, externally wonderful gardens with a mix of the wild and the cultivated.

Price: Offers in the region of £595,000.

Contact: Williamsons.

Phone: 01347 822800.