Waterside £5.5m monastery with River Thames views for sale

The Cloisters in High Street, Hurley, right on the border between Oxfordshire and Berkshire, is on the market with the whopping figure as a guide price.

Refurbished and modernised by the current owners, the six-bedroom property boasts 7,906 sq ft of accommodation arranged largely over two floors.

At the heart of the home is a former monks refectory, approaching almost 1,000 years old and now used as an impressive entertaining space.

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The Cloisters on the Oxfordshire border. (Image: Savills)

The ground floor also includes a sitting room, drawing room, study and two kitchen rooms, with one of these opening into a dining room.

The first floor is home to the principal bedroom suite and three other bedrooms, with a fifth bedroom at attic level, while there are also three refurbished bathrooms.

Other features of note include an outdoor swimming pool set in an Italian-inspired entertaining area, as well as a cedar wood-clad pool house with sauna, steam room, home gym, and fully equipped kitchen area. There is also a hot tub and tennis court.

The formal gardens are bordered by a Tudor wall and include the original medieval carp pond and an avenue of Irish yew trees, with paths leading towards a timber bridge over a moat.

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The Cloisters on the Oxfordshire border. (Image: Savills)

A riverside garden is located behind a discreet archway, complete with an informal mooring and a summerhouse mentioned in architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner’s Buildings of England series.

A separate one-bedroom property known as ‘Monks Cottage’ flanks the main house and offers additional accommodation.

Property agent Victoria Knight, head of office at Savills in Henley-on-Thames, said: “Set in delightful and secluded park-like grounds, The Cloisters is one of the principal houses in this much sought-after village.

“With easy access to both London and Heathrow, the property is steeped in local history and has been sympathetically restored by the current owners to create a magical home that offers an eclectic mix of ancient and modern.”

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The Cloisters on the Oxfordshire border. (Image: Savills)

The Cloisters has a rich history dating from its foundation in 1086 as a Benedictine Priory and was the centre of village life for over 450 years until it was closed by Henry VIII.

It passed into the ownership of the Lovelace family in the 16th century, who became Lords of the Manor, with the original monastic estate divided into separate properties in 1948.

In 1931, Queen Mary is believed to have visited the gardens and watched a game of tennis sitting on a stone seat which is now on the large lawn, while during the Second World War, Sorrel Strausler, designer of the amphibious tank used in the D-Day landings, reportedly used the property’s moat to test his prototype.

The Cloisters is on sale through Savills in Henley-on-Thames. Visit savills.com or call 01491 843000 for more information.