Grace and grandeur
THE launch onto the market of two of southern England’s most enviable country estates—elegant Ashe Park in affluent north Hampshire and dreamy Julians Park in sleepy north Hertfordshire —has, it’s to be hoped, set the tone for the country-house market this autumn.
The past 100 years have been a roller-coaster ride for the 235-acre Ashe Park estate near Steventon, a small, rural village in the rolling north Hampshire countryside, best known as the birthplace of Jane Austen; she was a regular visitor to Ashe Park in the 1790s and mentioned it in her letters.
The oldest part of the house dates from the 1600s, since when it has been altered,
