Gigantic houses you see when driving through the countryside...

[SunsetOnTheHorizon]

We have been doing lots of day trips to nearby scenic locations (as is the whole country) And we always wonder who lives in these huge (gorgeous) houses....

I mean, today for example, we drove through Worcestershire and some of these house had me doing a double take.

Obviously, the ones set back from the road that had a long driveway weren't visible to us, but the ones with enormous driveways, loads of windows and lovely lawned fronts caught my attention (as always)

I always wonder what the insides must look like...and how hard it must be to keep it looking lush (unless you have a team of cleaners)

So, if u live in one, I would love to know, was it inherited, are u minted and how do u feel roaming about in the endless space you have?

Very nosey, I know, but I had to ask today.

Thanks all...

Both are medical consultants. You need to add with huge private practice to that statement. I can assure you that the average NHS consultant isn’t buying a country pile with their NHS salary.

Our old house in Hertfordshire is on the market for 800k at the moment, you wouldn't get a country pile in Worcestershire for that. Maybe a 5 bed detached in a less desirable area to the north west where schools aren't as good but not in south Worcestershire as much.

The whopper estates near Henley and chipping nortonish are mainly Russians, private equity bros or entrepreneurs who sold their first company early for 9 figure sums. There are a lot of eye watering fly wealthy people who you e never heard of, who could buy out footballers or Gary Barlow many times over, and for whom the “quite wealthy” double six figure incomes are their exec assistant and her husband

I live in N Ireland and there are some gigantic houses out in the countryside here. Obviously they are much cheaper than similar in the south of England or wherever, but then salaries are much much lower here, even for professional jobs.

I know people with very ordinary salaries who live in really really big houses. Without exception, they were gifted a site by a relative and built on it. Since the site was the expensive part they built something much bigger than they would otherwise have been able to buy. Then they maybe have one set of parents paying their rates bill and the other set of parents paying for their oil and electricity. The appeal of having people say 'oh, your house is huge' exceeds the appeal of being independent.

Then of course there are big houses that are actually owned by people who do earn big salaries. Most of them in my area are the owners of businesses that have started small and then expanded over the years to become quite big.

Lived in one of these thanks to ex-DP. His dad was in the movies. It was stunningly beautiful but an absolute money pit. Not enough money to pay for staff or carers so we lived there to look after his mum. Bills were sky high and it was a long old haul to take a nappy to the bin. I lived in fear we'd either be broken into or it would catch fire. I kept a duffle bag and a rope so I could lower DD out the window.

Not everyone who lived there in the past had left. It had been exorcised by a Bishop (grand) but it hadn't quite worked. It was an unhappy place.

I'm more than happy back in my urban 2 up 2 down terrace.

Virtually everyone in my town has someone to come to the house to wash their cars!

We have a 7 bedroom Georgian house with about an acre of land. We have a gardener once a week and a cleaner 3x per week. DH and I are both solicitors. We have dirty cars!

Upkeep is a constant battle. There's a rolling programme of refurbishment which we mostly do ourselves.

It would cost less to buy this house than it would to buy the flat in London we sold to buy it. It's a terrifying example of house price rises in London. We bought the flat for £425k and sold for £750k 4 years later but with a lot of work done (electrics/ heating/ new windows etc). That flat was recently on the market again for £1.5m.

If you want to see inside them, just keep an eye on Rightmove.

Here is a classic example.

We live in Dorset and a good number of DS's friends have these National Trust type properties that they've swapped for their 4 bed terrace in Camden. When the DC were younger we went to some excellent birthday parties in them!

I'm more than happy back in my urban 2 up 2 down terrace.

Yeah big houses freak me out a bit too. If I won the lottery I'd buy a house with 4 beds maximum, I don't like too many doors 🤷‍♂️

I live in south Worcestershire, and though you don't get a country pile for £850,000 a house fairly recently sold near me for that which had 8 bedrooms, an indoor pool, annexe, and amazing grounds running down to the river with their own landing pontoon etc. Once you get to £1.5 million you are into the realm of proper grounds and a georgian house, £2.5 would currently buy you an incredible historic house near me. There are a lot of people who leave London and move to this area, but many of the large houses host some sort of business, often in outbuildings but my SIL has her office in a proper manor house

I'm in Hampshire and there are a couple of people I know (very tangentially unfortunately, must do better so I can get myself invited to parties!) who own palatial properties here.

In one the DH is the CFO of a well known DIY chain.

Another is a hedge fund manager / investment manager of some kind in the City, comes in by helicopter.

The third is also some kind of hedge fund manager/investment manager.

The latter two - the DH spends Mon-Thurs night in a City pad. The wives and children live in it all the time.

I occasionally day dream about having a house like this. I would be OK with needing a cleaner and gardener but the upkeep would put me off even if I had the money. I just wouldn't like the hassle. A couple of spare bedrooms would make me happy and enough land to go for a nice walk in.

If you want to see inside them, just keep an eye on Rightmove

Yes, I've picked up a new habit of doing the 'virtual tours' around these big, lush properties and playing 'who do you think lives in a house like this'.

I even check out what they've got on their bookshelves

@reefedsail

If you want to see inside them, just keep an eye on Rightmove.

Here is a classic example.

We live in Dorset and a good number of DS's friends have these National Trust type properties that they've swapped for their 4 bed terrace in Camden. When the DC were younger we went to some excellent birthday parties in them!

If you google the addresses (these large houses are usually mentioned by name in the estate agent write up) you can usually find out who owns them and what they do for a living.

I wouldn't post this if I was piecing it together from companies house or whatever but this one as an example is the subject of an entire Daily Fail write up.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7904827/amp/Neighbours-planning-row-Canoteign-Manor-Dartmoor-Devon-Chinese-owner-holiday-home.html

James Dyson’s sons live in 2 separate mansions in Somerset. One of them hugely upset the village by putting in a helipad and using it at all hours.

Ours is slightly different because it's a semi - it used to be a mill owners house (the mill is now our back garden)but was too big for one home so was split in to 2. Our 'half' is 5 large double beds, 4 bath/ downstairs shower room, 3 reception rooms and really quite small (in comparison) kitchen. We intend to get a kitchen extension. We also have a cellar and a couple of loft rooms which were servants rooms. And an outhouse which is now a double garage and outhouse which is essentially a shed and loo. The garden is huge, the front garden is 3 cars deep plus path between lawn and front door, it used to be wider but the council bought a strip from the previous owners to widen the road for safety. We and next door are the only 2 houses on the street like it though. The rest are interwar semi's and Victorian semis and terraces. Next doors garden is much smaller than ours though as we also have the orchard/ paddock incorporated in to ours.

We have a cleaner and gardener, house insurance is 1k a year, council take is highest it can be for our area, it cost a fortune to heat until we got the tado system.

Decor-wise it is incredibly dated. Was last decorated in the late 80s/ early 90s. So lots of borders halfway up the wall, burgundies and blue tones, terracotta. But also very classical and well maintained. Almost seems a shame to redecorate it as it has been so well done, but is really not our taste. We've decorated the kids room and the lounge now, more modern but still fairly classical. I've just stripped and decorated the hall, took me a week! Needed replastering but we can't afford that yet so just gave it a lick of paint.

It's a beautiful house and we absolutely love it but we hadn't quite factored in how much the upkeep would be, so whilst our household income is above average we aren't minted. We tried without a gardener for a while but the garden just looked horrendous after a while, almost unusable as we just can't mow it without a ride of mower, which we don't have. DH tried with the flymo but it broke it!

We were able to buy it because we made a good investment in our first house - it tripled in value in the 6 years we owned it, combined with doubling our household income (2 public sector workers on average income to one public sector manager and one IT private sector worker) and a huge reduction in mortgage interest rates meant we could more than triple our mortgage.

@wheresmymojo I am currently coveting the library in this one!

Many of these houses are not that expensive per square foot to buy. My neighbours sold up an average but very much “first rung” detached house that you would see anywhere for £1.3m (its in SE) and bought a huge 13 bedder with land in Norfolk for their semi-retirement for less at £1m. It’s not stately home style - but v beautiful. It’s also not commutable, no where near schools etc - but the running costs and the ongoing logistical management efforts are v demanding. They had a massive bill for an unseen structural issue soon after they moved in (£130k). Even money was no object to throw at the money pit - the ongoing tedium, time, headache, stress of coordinating maintaining, cleaning etc does not appeal to me.

Might be fun to rent one of these houses for a year or so to enjoy the fantasy without the responsibilities. I would imagine that they are also tough to offload (on the market for years). I visit for the odd weekend once or twice a year and have no desire to take this path. I would go in the opposite direction - something v small, zero maintenance or security worry that I could lock up and leave at the drop of a hat to jump in a camper van and head off into the sunset.

My neighbour had a well paid job in advertising living here - now does part time consulting in the industry.

The next village over from me has some gorgeous stately piles that go on the market for £1.5m or less sometimes. I'm talking parkland, tapestries, panelled walls, gatehouses, deer parks. The reason being that the village is in the middle of nowhere, no bus routes, no station, it has a 60mph A road through the middle of it which links two East-West transport arteries and no amenities except a pub.

It is essentially a collection of massive houses lining a main road and nothing else.

Anyone wanting to sell up a normal sized house in London and move to the countryside could easily afford one - if you had a car to drive the 5 miles to the train station you could be back in London within 1.5 hours so easily commutable.

Not a country mansion but we live in a large very striking city property and get lots of wow type remarks. The house is worth a lot but we bought 20 years ago it when it was a mess and have spent far too much on building work and repairs. To us it's just home.

The people I know with big country houses all own their own business. One sells kitchens. Another sells air conditioning. Another owns an iron foundry. Without exception they all inherited an established business and expanded it. And they all bought their houses before prices went up. For example one person bought for £350k in the 1990s and sold last year for £800k. Another who paid about the same has just sold for over £1m. It’s impossible to replicate that now because house prices are too high.

@Disfordarkchocolate

I occasionally day dream about having a house like this. I would be OK with needing a cleaner and gardener but the upkeep would put me off even if I had the money. I just wouldn't like the hassle. A couple of spare bedrooms would make me happy and enough land to go for a nice walk in.

I'm the same! Even if I won loads on the lottery I wouldn't buy a huge house because I'd resent paying so much gas/electric/maintenance

I have a mate with a great, but more ordinary than you'd think job (think headteacher) who has a country pile. Husband works NHS band 7 so not megabucks. She did made a few quid on refurbishing her previous 3 bed terrace.

The location of the property makes it cheaper. It's an hour from the city off-peak, more like 90mins in rush hour. It was really not cheap, but cost the same as a 4 bed semi in the city's more desirable postcodes, which no-one would bat an eyelid at two professionals owning.

I know two families who inherited stately homes in the south east.

One was on that Country House Rescue in c4 years ago, and has made all the gardens into a family visitor attraction march - october. And have weddings.

The others have masses of land to go with it, which they rent out aa well as farm themselves (and attempt to sell some off for massive housing estates), they host weddings and generally both of their full time job is making the whole lot pay for it's own massive upkeep.

I wouldn’t go for a massive house either, that pile outside Exeter looks creepy AF.