LIVE24SEVEN // Property & Interiors


Romantic, aristocratic, and on the market for the first time in four decades – Mill Hill Farm, Sherborne, Gloucestershire


A considerable proportion of period houses with barns and land in the Cotswolds have been subject to intensive modernisation, updated and manicured inside and out. Mill Hill Farm is a notable exception. But far from being a ‘blank canvas’, this enchanting Gloucestershire property is akin to a vast work of art, each and every last inch covered with bold images and dazzling colours representing a vivid forty-year family history.


Shortly after their marriage in 1976, Sir Mark Palmer and the Hon Catherine Tennant moved into the rambling house hidden in a gentle fold of the hills on the periphery of the National Trust-owned village of Sherborne, and set about filling it with children, dogs, horses, gypsy caravans, art, and a vibrant juxtaposition of aristocratic and bohemian life.


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Brought up in Gloucestershire and a Page of Honour to the Queen, Mark was part of swinging London in the 60's. But he soon opted for the countryside and a nomadic life, travelling around England in a gypsy caravan, then breeding, breaking in, selling and racing horses. Today, coloured ponies graze the peaceful paddocks surrounding the farm, and softly munch hay in the cool airy stables that were once home to Jerry Hall’s children’s ponies. An array of gypsy caravans and carts provide aesthetically pleasing punctuation to the traditional farm courtyard formed by Grade II Listed Cotswold stone barns with their vaulted ceilings and exposed beams.


Catherine, half-sister to Colin Glenconner who famously bought the island of Mustique in 1958 and turned it into a playground for the titled and wealthy, became Shop Hound on Vogue in the 1970s. Later, after their two children were born, she wrote the magazine’s horoscopes under the pen name Wanda Starr, then The Telegraph’s horoscopes under her own name. Now she writes books, and has her own website, Interactive Stars, which she runs from her colourful study filled with books, art and artefacts, the ceiling covered in stars, overlooking the garden at the front of the house.


Mill Hill Farm ‘is one of the most romantic houses in Gloucestershire’, according to John Betjeman's daughter, Candida Lycett Green, who was described by Country Life as 'the finest writer of our time on the English countryside’.


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