Former Millfield boarding house on sale for £2 million

Millfield hasn't got a very good record as far as dealing with historic local buildings goes. Although the then headmaster, so I am told, once said in public that boarding houses would be returned to being family homes, much needed if Street is to be a mixed community - a friend of mine decades ago found that all the larger houses in Street were taken over by Millfield, so she had to move to Wells - the house in Portway was going to be sold to a developer to be demolished. I don't know the state of play at the moment.

Etonhurst in Ashcott looks a barn of a place from the road, but apparently Millfield sold it to a property developer for his own use, so it has been spared the bulldozers.

See pictures of Etonhurst here.

From The Times

A property developer whose children attend the school discovers a well while refurbishing his home

Francesca Steele

When it comes to novelty talking-points few homes will beat this one. For starters, there is the well. Not just any old well, however - this one is in the kitchen, pictured right. “We discovered it under some wooden flooring,” says James le Page, 45, the developer who bought Etonhurst House, Somerset, in 2004. It is not clear quite how old the 7ft-diameter well is; le Page thinks that it may date to the Romans. It is now illuminated from below and protected by 2in-thick glass, so there is no chance either of using it or of falling in.

The second talking-point is the history of the house itself. The huge kitchen where the well now takes pride of place used to be a pupils' common room. Etonhurst House is a former boarding house for 50 boys at the co-educational Millfield School in Street, near Glastonbury.

Le Page, whose children attend the school, has transformed it from a dusty old building filled with shower blocks, dorms and lavatories into a luxury dwelling for his family of five. The property is now for sale for £2 million with Hamptons International (01993 824546), reduced from its original price of £2.5 million when it went on the market in June.

The restored Georgian property, which is a ten-minute drive from the school itself, now has seven bedrooms, a drawing room, dining room, sitting room, morning room and kitchen/breakfast room, as well as a billiards room and wine cellar and almost five acres of grounds, including a walled garden and football pitch.

“It's been a real labour of love,” says le Page, who is returning to his native Guernsey with his wife, Karen.

“We've done so much to it. There's still a real sense of history about the place. Old boys often knock on the door, asking to have a look around,” he says. For buyers interested in converting the property further, one wing remains mostly untouched. The old pantries, with original marble cooling slabs, and meat rooms, with sloping floors to let the blood run off, are still intact. The family was going to install a swimming pool and gym but never got around to it. Le Page estimates that it would cost about £50,000 to convert for residential purposes.

“It's been a real labour of love,” says le Page, who is returning to his native Guernsey with his wife, Karen.

“We've done so much to it. There's still a real sense of history about the place. Old boys often knock on the door, asking to have a look around,” he says. For buyers interested in converting the property further, one wing remains mostly untouched. The old pantries, with original marble cooling slabs, and meat rooms, with sloping floors to let the blood run off, are still intact. The family was going to install a swimming pool and gym but never got around to it. Le Page estimates that it would cost about £50,000 to convert for residential purposes.