Mayfair Office members, Rowland Gorringe Estate Agents are selling a small piece of English Victorian history.

Lime House, Church Road, Herstmonceux, East Sussex was formerly the childhood home of the renowned Water Colour Artist and Travel Writer Augustus Hare, famous for also writing the longest biography in the English Language.  

Originally built in 1835 today, this impressive former Estate house is arranged into four very individual homes.

Approached via a small country lane that continues to form into a private driveway which passes an attractive lake and finally terminates at the entrance of Lime House. Throughout, this spacious property still retains many characteristics from a property of this period including; large principal rooms with high ceilings, ornate cornices, ceiling roses in addition to high skirting-boards, picture rails and solid internal doors. Notable features include a capacious former billiard room offering a variety of usages from formal dining to a consultancy room measuring 24'8 x 19'9, a country style fully fitted bespoke kitchen affords access to the breakfast room with a pleasant outlook over the rear gardens.  A well-proportioned sitting room with a feature open fireplace is also accessible from the reception hall and breakfast room. The accommodation which is arranged over four floors also incorporates a large principal bedroom, family bathroom, guest bedroom and a top floor suite comprising of a bedroom, dressing room and a separate shower room/WC. The accommodation and location coupled with private and good-sized gardens and private parking must be viewed for all to be fully appreciated.
 
Augustus John Cuthbert Hare (13 March 1834 – 22 January 1903) was an English writer and raconteur.  Augustus Hare was born in Rome; later he was adopted by his aunt, and his parents renounced all further claim to him. His autobiography The Story of My Life details both a devotion to his adopted mother, Maria, and an intense unhappiness with his home education. He spent one year at Harrow School in 1847 but left due to ill health. In 1853 he attended University College, Oxford, graduating in 1857 with a BA.

Hare was the author of a large number of books, which fall into two classes: biographies of members and connections of his family, and descriptive and historical accounts of various countries and cities. To the first belong Memorials of a Quiet Life (about his adoptive mother), Story of Two Noble Lives (Lady Canning and Lady Waterford), The Gurneys of Earlham, and an autobiography in several volumes. This last included a number of accounts of encounters with ghosts. A reviewer in the New York Times concluded that "Mr Hare's ghosts are rather more interesting than his lords or his middle-class people". He also compiled numerous travel books including Walks in Rome, Walks in London, Wanderings in Spain, Cities of Northern, Southern, and Central Italy (separate works), Days near Rome.

In his biography of Somerset Maugham, writer Ted Morgan mentions that Hare, whom he refers to as "the last Victorian," befriended Maugham who became a frequent guest at his country house.

GUIDE PRICE - £485,000 ~ £520,000

For further details contact:

Rowland Gorringe Estate Agents
Tel - 01273 474101
Website - www.rowlandgorringe.co.uk