Aylburton, Lydney, GL15

Priors Mesne enjoys a wonderfully private setting at the end of a long lime-tree avenue, opening into a secluded estate that extends across gardens, parkland and woodland. The main house, thought to date back to the early 1700s with later 19th-century additions, combines generous proportions with fine period detail and far-reaching views.

The Main House
The impressive entrance hall sets the tone with a handsome 19th-century staircase, original tiled floor and soaring ceiling heights. The principal reception rooms are light-filled and elegant, including a large drawing room with bowed sash windows, ornate cornicing and a substantial stone fireplace. Both the sitting room and study take in magnificent views over the Severn.

At the heart of the house, the kitchen and breakfast room centres on an oil-fired AGA, with bespoke cabinetry, underfloor heating and a log burner. Bi-folding doors open onto a conservatory-style garden room, creating a seamless connection to the terrace and gardens.

Upstairs, the principal bedroom suite is generous and light, with an ensuite bathroom and dressing room. Four further bedrooms occupy the first floor — two ensuite and two sharing a Jack-and-Jill bathroom — each with exceptional ceiling heights. The second floor provides four further bedrooms and a family bathroom, offering ideal space for children or guests. With the house being unlisted, there is scope to reconfigure the layout if desired.

The Courtyard Cottages
A former gamekeeper’s courtyard has been sensitively developed to create three successful holiday cottages: Garden Cottage, Keeper’s Cottage and The Coach House. Alongside are a gym, laundry, workshops, stables, storerooms and the former coach bay. A separate driveway allows the cottages to operate independently from the main house.

Outbuildings & Equestrian Facilities
Within the grounds are a substantial steel-framed agricultural barn, a Dutch barn with four stables, lambing pens and wood stores, offering excellent scope for farming or equestrian use.

Gardens & Grounds
Priors Mesne is framed to the north and east by protective woodland, while terraced gardens unfold in a series of lawns, herbaceous borders and specimen trees. There are extensive greenhouses and raised beds overlooking the swimming pool, heated by an air-source heat pump, together with a secluded tennis court.

The wider parkland includes two ponds, horse chestnut, lime, oak and copper beech trees, with fenced grazing fields interspersed with woodland — once forming part of the estate’s historic deer park.

History

Dating back to the 19th Century, Priors Mesne was built by Dr Henry Cook who was formally a surgeon in the Indian Medical Service. He was particularly interested in books by William Robinson, the influential Victorian Gardener. He was determined to create the garden of his dreams in
the English countryside and by 1888 had purchased Prior Mesne. He cleared large areas and set about introducing many exotic plants, including Chinese aralias, azaleas, buddleias, japonica, hydrangea and magnolias. In 1904, he sold the estate to a Dr Robert Leamon Bowles who wrote
many medical books and travelled the world widely. He also had a keen interest in gardening and brought back from his travels many foreign plants and trees, most of which can still be seen today. In recent years, the parkland was used as a Deer Park until 2008.

Services

Mains water and electricity, private drainage, oil and solid wood biomass fired central heating (biomass also heats Keepers Yard benefitting from non-domestic RHI payments). There are c.7 kw PV solar panels on the main house and 3kw on the Coach House benefitting form FITs as well as solar thermal to the main house for hot water.

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Location
St Briavels 3.5 miles
Lydney 4 miles
Chepstow 8 miles
Monmouth 11 miles
Bristol Parkway 21 miles (London Paddington from 75 minutes)
Bristol 25 miles
Cheltenham 31 miles
Bristol Airport 35 miles
Cardiff 40 miles
London 133 miles