QUEEN'S PALACE: MANSION WITH A REMARKABLY COLOURFUL ROCK 'N' ROLL PEDIGREE

Mail on sunday 26 october 2014

It may look like a peaceful, English country home, but Milhanger, in the village of Thursley in Surrey, has rock ’n’ roll history running through it. For 24 years it was the home of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, and it also has links to Pink Floyd and the Boomtown Rats.

The property, which comes with over 74 acres and includes a tennis court, stables, a six-car garage, a ‘party barn’ and a Grade II-listed mill house that is a four-bedroom home in its own right, is now on the market for £7.95 million.

When he owned the property, Taylor had a recording studio in the mill house and mixing desks in what is now a study, and he held concerts in the barn.

Current owners Anne and David Feld bought the house from Taylor in 2003 and are still in touch with him. ‘We told Roger we were selling the house and he wrote Anne a letter,’ David says, explaining that Taylor has now taken the idea of having your workplace on your doorstep one step further. ‘In his letter to Anne he made the joke that in his new house, Putnam Priory, he didn’t even have to leave the main house to do his work!’

Before Taylor, the house was owned by a family called the Rutters. The Rutters’ daughter, Lindy, dated and later married another rock star drummer – Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason. ‘So it wasn’t just Roger who used to rock around here!’ David says.

Showing me around his study, David, an emerging markets investor, adds: ‘Roger had pine walls in here to hold all his gold discs.

‘He was incredibly respectful of this house. He had different taste for sure but he didn’t mess with the bones at all. He really loved this place. When he moved here, there were only six acres. He gradually added bits of land.’

One of the most remarkable rooms is a bedroom with dark blue Chinese wallpaper. ‘This is called the Bob Geldof suite,’ David says. ‘Bob was a great pal of Roger’s and would often stay here, so there was a sign with The Bob Geldof suite written on it. We couldn’t change it, it’s just too quirky.’

Taylor lived at Milhanger from 1979 to 2003 and during that time he wrote the band’s hits Radio Ga Ga and A Kind Of Magic.

The property also has an indoor leisure complex, which includes a heated swimming pool, Jacuzzi, gym, steam room and changing room with showers and WCs. A staff cottage attached to the property has two bedrooms, a bathroom, a WC, a living room, study, dining room and kitchen.

Milhanger, which was built in 1907, was designed by Arts & Craft architect Harold Falkner who also created about 50 houses around the nearby town of Farnham.

‘A lot of Farnham High Street looks very Georgian but it’s Georgian-style rather than Georgian-era,’ David says.

Anne and David, both 59, bought the property when their eldest two children were at university and their youngest son was 17.

Anne says: ‘We’ve never used this house with little children but we’ve had so many house guests and friends of our children to stay. You don’t ever feel like you’re in some empty cavernous space. Some big houses are not warm and friendly but this one really is.

‘When I first saw this house I just felt like it hugged me. It was the most wonderful feeling. You see the brochure and you think, “Gosh, it’s an enormous house,” but you walk in and actually it’s really cosy.

‘We live in the whole house. It’s just me and David – the children come and go because they’re all grown up – but we use every bit of the property.’

Explaining why they are now selling, Anne says: ‘We’re both about to turn 60 and it would be good to think, that if anything happens to either of us, we wouldn’t have so much responsibility.’

This ‘responsibility’ extends not only to looking after the land surrounding the house, but also the animals they keep on it, including pigs called Clive and Vanessa.

James Mackenzie, of selling agents Strutt & Parker, says: ‘Milhanger is the perfect estate within reach of everything an international or London-centric buyer might need. Yet it’s hidden away in its own little world, with a house grand enough to entertain royalty.

‘The beautifully converted mill set on an idyllic lake is the perfect place to hide away. It has something for everybody.

‘What you are buying is a piece of rock ’n’ roll history. You can just imagine all the wild nights in the party barn.’