A building back from the brink
IN December 2013, Halswell House was placed in a bankruptcy sale. The house and its many handsome outbuildings were offered in some six lots, comprising 12 separate freeholds, reflecting some of the flats and tenancies created after the estate’s break-up in 1950. By good fortune, at that very moment, the entrepreneur and gallery owner Edward Strachan had grown weary of his valiant attempt to acquire another desperately endangered country house, Piercefield, Monmouthshire, from the Reuben Brothers. He arrived at Halswell House as the auctioneer began the sale in the traditional manner, first offering to sell the property as a single lot. Happily, there was only one other bid and he bought it in minutes.
‘Tree-ring dating provided a range of 1590–1600 for the earliest parts’
Within six months, Mr Strachan had substantially secured the landscape as well, including Mill Wood with its follies and, subsequently, the Old Farmhouse, the Georgian ferme ornée and Rook’s Castle fields, 85 acres that give access to the eye-catching Robin Hood Hut (owned by the Landmark Trust) and provide glorious views to the Bristol Channel and Wales.
