What you use your pension fund for is entirely up to you, but property traditionally has always been a sound investment. In this case, our client used a portion of that fund to build prestigious offices on existing farm buildings.
As part of the Lamport Estate, these grade two listed converted stone barns now house some fantastic offices with magnificent views across the valley.
Set next to the Swan public house (that just happens to serve great food) and its lovely pub garden, they provide a great place to work, as well as entertain clients or chill out on that warm sunny afternoon.
Lamport Hall has some fantastic history, which in itself adds a real kudos to these buildings:
- Lamport Hall was the home of the Isham family from 1560 to 1976
- The first house was built by John Isham, a younger son from a Northamptonshire family, who made his fortune as a merchant
- In 1655 his great-grandson, Justinian, commissioned John Webb, a pupil of Inigo Jones, to add an extension to the parlour-end of the Tudor house
- The five bay section, an example of Renaissance-inspired Classicism, is now at the centre of the garden front
- Justinian’s son, Thomas, went on a Grand Tour in 1676 and many of the paintings he purchased during this time can still be seen at Lamport Hall
- In 1732-40, Francis Smith of Warwick was employed to add wings on either side of Webb’s building
- The remnants of the old building were swept away in 1819-21, when a new dining room was built on the site of the Tudor hall to the designs of Henry Hakewill. In 1861, the entrance front was remodeled by William Burn
- The last member of the family to occupy the house was Sir Gyles Isham, an actor and historian
- Sir Gyles left the house to the charitable Lamport Hall Trust
