Hyperbole in estate agents’ brochures isn’t unusual – but when it comes to a write-up for Great Tangley Manor, which has gone on the market for £8.95 million, overkill is almost impossible. Believed to be the UK’s oldest continuously inhabited property – its Saxon foundations date from 1016 – the Grade I-listed moated manor house, in the village of Wonersh in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, comes with an extraordinary roll call of associated famous names.
From the spheres of royalty, art, literature, garden design and even America’s Gilded Age, all have played their part in shaping secluded Great Tangley into a country house with a compelling story.
The tale of the now ten-bedroom house, set in more than ten acres of grounds and namechecked by Pevsner as Surrey’s most impressive half-timbered building, begins more than a millennium ago. A homestead founded on the site was believed to be owned by Alnod Cilt, thought by some historians to be King Harold’s younger brother.
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