Unlike many country houses requisitioned by the military in World War Two, this property survived and has even had parts of its former estate reinstated.
Despite the positive noises from estate agents, there appears to be a slowdown in the sale of large country houses. Take Shudy Camps Hall in Cambridgeshire, featured here two years at a guide price of £5 million, later dropped to £4.5 million, and now available to buyers at Savills for a much reduced £3.75 million. However, the latest price has stripped out the Elizabethan House and Park Lodge, now available as separate lots.
Shudy Camps Hall is a Grade II listed Queen Anne House. It is fundamentally a 17th century house with later 18th and 19th century additions.
Also referred to as Shudy Camps Park, it was built by Marmaduke Dayrell about 1700 and remained with the family for three generations. The Rev. Richard Dayrell offered the debt-burdened Shudy Camps Park estate for sale in 1898.
Shudy Camps Hall was bought by Arthur Gee, who perhaps thought his surname not grand enough and changed it to Maitland. He died in 1903 and the house, along with 300 acres, was sold to the Rev. Cannon F.F.S.M.Thornton, Vicar of Shudy Camps and Canon Emeritus of Ely Cathedral.
On his death in 1939 the estate was broken up – the parkland was requisitioned by the British Army and the house occupied by the Royal Air Force. It has now returned to private ownership and over the last few years the estate has been gradually pieced back together with the acquisition of various cottages within the grounds.