CARTLAND COTTAGE - THE CHARMING HOME WITH A REAL HINT OF ROMANCE
Mail on sunday 08 november 2014
Having a daughter who resembles a heroine from a Barbara Cartland novel is an unusual bargaining chip to have when negotiating a property purchase. Yet that’s what swung it when Maureen and John Adkin bought their cottage in Hertfordshire.
For half a century, Dame Barbara lived and worked at the ten-bedroom mansion Camfield Place near Hatfield – and owned the many other properties on the 400-acre estate in which it sits.
But the only one ever to have come on to the open market is Wyndham Cottage, which Maureen and John bought in 1986.
‘Barbara Cartland wanted to meet whoever was going to buy the house,’ Maureen says, adding that the romantic fiction novelist invited the couple’s daughter Tracie to tea.
‘My daughter would have been about 20 and had tea with Barbara Cartland and Glen and Ian, her sons. They all sat round this huge table having tea and cucumber sandwiches. She was a very formal lady!
‘She poured the tea and they chatted – and then she said to my daughter, “You are just like one of the heroines out of one of my books, the place is yours!”’
John, 72, a builder, says he can see why prolific romantic novelist Dame Barbara took to Tracie. ‘I think she saw a kindred spirit, because my daughter is really dynamic. Nothing gets in her way.’
Tracie now has a make-up business with a salon in London’s Knightsbridge and a number of celebrity clients.
There would be no Dame Barbara-style formalities for anyone wanting to buy Wyndham Cottage today, which is on sale for £1.395 million through Hamptons International.
The property, which has five bedrooms, has been run as a bed-and-breakfast for the past couple of years by Maureen and John. It also has three reception rooms and a separate one-bedroom annexe.
Maureen, 71, a retired hairdresser, says she occasionally did Dame Barbara’s hair when the author’s stylist was on holiday.
She adds: ‘She used to have her hair done every single day. I would go in at about 11 in the morning. Her secretary would be reading her mail to her and I would do her hair and her nails, if she would sit still long enough. She was very busy – she used to smudge them!
‘I would help her with her make-up and she would take me into her gown room where she had all these magnificent gowns – racks and racks of gowns.’
Dame Barbara died in 2000 at the age of 98, and the estate is retained by her family. She is buried in the grounds, under a tree planted by Elizabeth I.
But she is not the only writer with connections to Wyndham Cottage. The property was once two separate homes, owned by Beatrix Potter’s paternal grandfather.
Beatrix would visit on holiday as a young girl and wrote in her journal: ‘It is the place I love best in the world… where I have been so happy as a child.’
It is said that she wrote The Tale Of Peter Rabbit while staying there. And Mr McGregor’s garden in the book is partly based on one of the estate cottages’ plots.
‘Living here has been magical,’ Maureen says. ‘I can see why you would be inspired to write.’
The couple have referenced Beatrix Potter by naming the B&B’s bedrooms after characters and places in her books. For instance, there is Bluebell room, Peter’s room and Flopsy’s room.
Maureen feels that the time is now right for the property to have a new owner, saying: ‘We’re in our 70s now and it’s too big for us. We should step down so that someone else can have the same pleasure we’ve had from it.’
Nuala Easter, associate director at Hamptons’ St Albans office, says: ‘Wyndham Cottage occupies an enviable position with captivating views of the surrounding countryside. It provides excellent accommodation, and has a beautiful garden, which is about one third of an acre.’