Manor House with Trout River for Sale in Bellac, Limousin, France

Manor House, Guest House, Stables and Trout River – Magnifiq

This formidable property is as big as it looks, the stables, too and the little house would be a lot of fun to turn into private guest accommodation. About 5 minutes drive from the nearest major town with all amenities, the house faces down the valley to the River Gartempe, a beautiful trout river about 500m of riverbank of which is part of the property. The sub-ground floor of the house, entered from the river side was used as the staging post for the coaches passing through and has a big (about 20m²), basic kitchen, a big office (about 20m²) each with gorgeous tiled floors and real character feel, and a very large sitting room (about 40m²) with fantastic parquet floor and French windows back out onto the terrace. Up the magnificent oak stair we come to the main ground floor – from the main entry hall which is gorgeous, to the right we have a basic kitchen with huge granite fireplace and oak units, continuing we come through to two offices, each of which have super tall windows with views down the meadow to the river. A big sitting room (about 36m²) has oak board floor, two tall windows with that great view and an oak fireplace, then we come into the big dining room (about 26m²), again, the oak fireplace and two big windows out to the courtyard – which brings us back to the entry hall! Phewww, again, up the big oak stair and we come to a massive landing, here we have a big bathroom, separate WC and three, big bedrooms (each about 20m²), each with board floors. The main bedroom has a simply gorgeous view of the valley as well as a balcony looking out over the stables – a previous lady of the manor liked to see how her race horses were behaving! The other side of the landing, we find 3 more even bigger bedrooms, one with a little en-suite, all with fireplaces and all simply full of the souvenirs of 30 years on the road as an ambassador for France all over the world (the whole house should be opened up to the public, before its contents are spread all over France!). Again, we continue up the stair to find the top of the house where there are 3 very basic bedrooms (servant’s quarters) and a large attic space. Out to the grounds and we find a small house, very solid but needing a full renovation, this has two rooms on the ground floor each of about 20m², one with a bread oven, and upstairs we have a lovely board floor and a new insulated roof. The other side of the house we have an enormous stable block, this has a stone flag area to the front to make it easier for the horses and incorporates a big garage with rooms above and stabling for about a dozen horses with attendant hay loft! This is a simply beautiful property, the only downsides are the proximity to the road on the none river side of the house (though the screen of trees meant I drove past it twice, before I saw it) and the fact that the simply charming owner may not be with us for a full guided tour – more stories than the Empire State and far more interesting. Impressive in extreme and a fantastic opportunity to invest in some real history.