A quintessential country cottage in the friendly village of Brightwalton. Partly thatched, with exposed beams and a picture perfect garden, this charming cottage offers flexible accommodation with plenty of space for entertaining and home working.

Accommodation

Malthouse Cottage offers flexible accommodation, with 4 reception rooms and 3 double bedrooms. In addition there is a generous dual aspect study with views over the garden, and a garden studio, ideal for home working.

The dual aspect country kitchen includes a range oven and pretty bay window, ideal as a breakfast area, which leads through to the dining room. The centrepiece of the living room is a large inglenook fireplace with a wood burning stove, perfect for cosy winter evenings. The bright garden room is the ideal space for a further study or sitting room.

Finally, there is a full bathroom and separate WC on the ground floor, and two staircases leading upstairs.

The middle staircase leads to the main suite, snug and bedroom 3. The charming main suite includes an en-suite shower and dressing room. The snug is a flexible area ideal as a reading room, study area or informal lounge.

The second staircase at the front of the house leads to bedroom 2, perfect for guests.

Thatch: The roof was re-thatched in 2018

Garage There is planning permission for a double garage

Garden

The third of an acre secluded garden wraps around the cottage. Perfectly manicured, the beautiful flower borders create a dreamy country garden. There is a generous vegetable patch and apple, pear, plum and mulberry trees for fresh, home baking and juicing. A large open lawn area, patio and summer house complete the garden. On a quiet country lane, the garden is the perfect spot to enjoy the fresh country air.

Brightwalton Village

Brightwalton is a small village in the Berkshire Downs, midway between Newbury and Wantage. This friendly community hosts regular events, including pop-up drinks and supper clubs hosted in various village homes. There’s even a rock choir, and a ‘telephone box library’ for locals to borrow and swap books.

The Berkshire Downs and Ridgeway are a rambler’s paradise, known for wonderful walks meandering through countryside and villages that inspired Thomas Hardy.

This area of West Berkshire is dotted with wonderful gastro pubs including ‘The Fox at Peasemore’, just 2 miles away, offering English pub classics with a twist and a superb Sunday roast. For a wider range of pubs, restaurants and shops, Wantage is 7 miles away, Newbury 9 miles.

Brightwalton has a village primary school rated as ‘Good’, and is within the Downs School catchment area, rated as ‘Outstanding’.

Transport links

A34 = 6 miles

M4 = 7 miles

Newbury train station: 9.4 miles

Didcot Parkway train station: 13.8 miles

Seller Insight

We moved to Malthouse Cottage 25 years ago with our young daughter, we found the perfect combination of house and location here in Brightwalton.

We love the character of the cottage, especially the inglenook fireplace, exposed beams and the privacy of the garden. In summer we spend a lot of time on the terrace in the garden, both are ideal for enjoying sunshine, food and drink. In winter we retreat to the living room, it’s incredibly cosy with the fire going.

Brightwalton really is a lovely village, there’s an active community and very good school here. Various residents host pop up events during the year and we have a community magazine and annual fete. For dog walkers, the Brightwalton parish boundary walk is around 4 miles, we often bump into our lovely neighbours along the way.

We’re closely connected to the surrounding villages, our children would regularly meet up for play dates and jump on the bus to Newbury and Oxford when they were older. Over the years I’ve worked all along the Thames corridor which is very easy to reach from here. We regularly visit Newbury, Wantage, Abingdon and Oxford, they’re all within half an hour.

The new owners of Malthouse Cottage will inherit a well cultivated vegetable garden and fruit trees. Each year we make damson gin, a real hit with guests, and send most of our apples to a press in Hungerford where they are juiced and bottled. The juice lasts us a whole year. There’s something rather special about drinking your own personally branded fruit juice for breakfast!

EPC Rating: (Exempt)