Bates Lane, Souldern, OX27

With over 2,000 sq ft of bright and airy accommodation including a suite with dressing room, a warm & inviting stone cottage with interesting features including a galleried landing. 3 bedrooms, all en-suite (one with dressing room) & potential to remodel to 4 bedrooms. Great village, easy access.

Souldern is a small village on the North Oxfordshire border, seven miles south-east of Banbury with roots going back at least 900 years. For those in the know it is one of the few remaining truly secluded villages, tucked away off a single entry road and hence almost unknown to most. This is what gives it the feeling of a peaceful lifestyle mostly lost today. There is an excellent pub/restaurant The Fox Inn, a Norman church, a chapel, a village hall, plus play area and playing field. Souldern is also one of the few villages in the area served by high speed fibre-optic broadband, making working from home truly viable. Banbury, Brackley and Bicester are all within easy distance with a good range of shopping and leisure facilities, and there are shops in many of the nearby villages. Bicester also offers the unrivalled facility of Bicester Village as well as a 45-minute rail service to London Marylebone. The M40 motorway at junction 10 is about three miles away and access to both Northampton and Milton Keynes is also straightforward.

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Keeper's Cottage is one of just three large stone cottages sat back behind stone walls at the lower end of the village. Unlike many cottages, the dimensions are really quite ample and this includes good ceiling heights in all rooms. But quite apart from the practicalities, the house also exhibits a sense of fun! The galleried landing above one of the receptions is interesting and unusual - and if you're a musician the acoustics will be fabulous... It's also a pampering house, with the principle bedroom providing not just a large en-suite with bath and separate shower, but also a dressing room! The whole house majors on quality, but the quantity of the living space is what surprised us most. It's a place for those who like the character of an old house but often find that character comes at the cost of practicality. At Keepers Cottage you really can have both!

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Coming in from the front door, you enter a wide hallway with a wood floor (this continues through the living room areas) and a further door separating it from the rest of the house, perfect for containing wet dogs/ children while you organise their entry! The size enables placement of a side table, chest for keeping the usual necessities of car keys etc in one place. Off to the right the boot room is set up with plumbing for the washing machine and there are coat racks on the wall, this is a natural space for eg wet dog's lobby. And the door next to it leads into the internal garage which is equipped with power. Through the hall rear door, to the immediately left the kitchen is a great space. The terracotta tiled floor contrasts beautifully with the cream farmhouse-style units and their wood work tops. With a run of units down three sides there really is as much storage as you could need, but with such niceties as a Belfast sink and a stainless steel range cooker included, it's also a smart and stylish kitchen that anyone would be happy to work in. And the proportions are such that a breakfast table sitting against the wall provides ample seating for four people with ease.

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Moving into the main living areas, immediately it's clear this is an interesting and friendly house to live in. The dining room to the right is lit up by huge natural light through the glazed double doors behind, which also give you a great view across the garden. It's ample for a large table with more than enough room to spare for a huge dresser, chest etc. On the left, where the walls have been opened up in the past this has left a really handy area that is used today as a large study space for the children, but could just as easily work as a home office area. Beyond it, a further pair of glazed doors to the garden bring in more natural light to the living room with its fireplace and galleried landing. The feeling of space and peace is delightful, and as mentioned before if you like your music, the acoustics are fantastic! For those who might have wished for more bedroom space, we suspect the galleried landing above could if desired be floored right across to provide another bedroom - if you would like to investigate further do ask and we will put you in touch with a good architect. Moving through the sitting room the enclosed rear hall leads down to a bathroom that is a good size and very well presented, doubling as the en-suite to the third bedroom. This is a perfect room for a teenager, nanny or granny as it could potentially be opened up at the rear with a door to the garden which would provide separate access and a degree of independence. Regardless, either as a bedroom or a living space, it's a large and practical room with lots of natural light.

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Upstairs, as you reach the top and look back the gallery is a grand and rather fun dimension to the house, looking down into the living spaces so they are part of the experience. But it's practical too, with a deep landing that has provided our clients with a great store space for children's toys as well a play area. Turn left and the first of the bedrooms up here is a surprise, extremely roomy so much so that it has been able to host two beds as well as a large desk, shelves etc with acres of floor space to spare. And next to it, the en-suite bathroom is large & modern with a stylish suite that includes a thermostatic shower above the bath. Note there is also a deep store cupboard under the eaves. Back across the landing, the principle bedroom is even larger! The feeling of space is wonderful, about as far from the sometimes claustrophobic feeling of many cottages as it is possible to get. A King size bed in this space leaves room for a huge wardrobe to the side with ease, and between the end of the bed and the wall is so great an area an easy chair, desk, shelves etc would all fit comfortably. And then there is the dressing room. Such things are never found in a cottage at this price. Integral wardrobes and store cupboards on two sides provide excellent storage, in addition to which a dressing table and chair would fit beautifully, with the roof light above providing the perfect possible light to work with. And if you didn't want to use it as a dressing room or walk-in wardrobe, it's a great study space that should be perfectly quiet for Zoom calls etc as it's away from the rest of the house. Completing this suite, the bathroom off to the side of the bedroom continues the theme of large, well-equipped facilities and this includes both a very stylish bath and a huge walk-in shower. It really is a unique and sumptuous suite!

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Outside, to the front of the house there is a parking space in front of the garage on a gravelled area with plenty of turning space, and immediately outside on both the High Street and Bates Lane you will find plenty more, unregulated parking available. A paved area to the left includes some borders for planting and a path that leads to the front door. By the garage, the gate leads to the back garden. This is delightfully secluded. Mainly lawned there is also a terrace that runs along the rear of the house, outside the patio doors that lead back into the living and dining rooms, offering generous space for seating and dining looking out to the South and West. Securely enclosed for dogs and children alike, it's a peaceful place to be, with various border containing a pleasant mix of flowers, shrubs and trees. And with longer walks through fields and woodland literally a couple of minutes' walk from the front door, this is all the outside space you could need.