The Barn, Home Close, Sharnbrook, Bedfordfordshire, MK44 1PQ

Eye-catching barn conversion in the heart of the ‘new cotswolds’ A striking, surprisingly unlisted, beautifully lime-pointed stone, 4 or 5-double-bedroom, former threshing barn, with stylish bathrooms, a lovely downstairs bedroom suite and extraordinary first-floor, timbered living space.

Through an electric gate, with its detached garage, driveway parking and walled gardens, The Barn looks towards the spire of the 13th century St Peter’s Church beyond The Manor House to which it once belonged, on a no through road within the conservation area of the prime North Bedfordshire village of Sharnbrook.

The home of he Bates’ Uncle Silas, Sharnbrook was recently mentioned in a national newspaper article lauding the area as the New Cotswolds.

Unusual for its combination of rural tranquillity, local facilities and proximity to road and rail networks, it’s less than 15 minutes from the county town of Bedford, its fast trains to London in 40 minutes and its world-renowned Harpur Trust private schools; and a similar distance to Rushden Lakes Shopping Centre in the other direction.

The village is sought-after by retirees, young families and commuters alike - The Barn is the ‘forever’ home that might have been designed to suit them all.

Children can walk to highly thought-of schools for all ages, recently rated ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ in all areas.

A Community Sports Centre, complete with a gym, is on the same site as the secondary school and sixth form and is named after Paula Radcliffe, the school’s famous alumna.

A friendly village club and bar operate at the playing fields, which are also home to tennis, football and cricket clubs.

Play golf on a super 9-hole course owned by Unilever, which has a research facility here.

A popular pub, restaurant, surgery and shops, including a Co-op and farm shop, not to mention a deli and coffee shop, are a short stroll away. The Mill Theatre is little more than a mile.

Glorious countryside and nature reserves are on the doorstep. Wander along the river and keep your eyes open for otters.

When The Barn was converted in the 70s, the builders jokingly erected a wooden cross atop the midstrey to confuse villagers as to what it was to become.

Fortunately, watched over by the real church not 500 yards away, what it has become is the superb family home that it is today.

More about the property At the touch of a button, with its pedestrian or vehicle settings, your electric gate slides smoothly to one side between the stone front walls.

Poet’s jasmine clambers over the garage. Bees busy themselves around the sweet-scented lavender beds, the ceanothus and the fragrant viburnum.

Much has changed, of course, since The Barn’s beginnings when horses and carts trundled through the yard where your front lawn now is, and offloaded their cargo beneath the protruding, weatherboarded midstrey.

Little could the early-19th century farmworkers tasked with the flailing of the grain have ever imagined the luxury living the scene of their back-breaking work has now become.

To one side of the former threshing floor, now your spacious entrance hall, the downstairs bedroom suite, with its fitted bed and white ash shelving resting above the plinth upon which the barn was built, is as perfect for guests or elderly parents, as it is for an independent teenager.

To the other side is your kitchen and dining room, with its wooden window seats, which opens to your perfectly private garden, where you can pick your own apples and pears, and where you can relax with a glass of something, in sun or in dappled shade beneath the beautiful silver birch.

With not one but three pantiled barns near the kitchen, you might be tempted in the future to turn the middle one into an outside utility; maybe allowing the current laundry room and even the office to join up into one, super, open-plan hub of the home - for cooking, dining and family living combined.

With the simply gorgeous sitting room on the first floor, its ceiling soaring high, supported by its beautiful queen post trusses, and with wonderful slit windows – which without glass in days of old, were just wide enough for ventilation and for barn owls to slip through to deal with pests – emphasising the amazingly thick walls that help keep your new home cool on hot days.

Relax with a good book in the raised library area.

Stoke up the stove in winter and fling open the French doors to the Juliet balcony come summertime – and to the wonderful treescape beyond the historic, thatched cottage and Victorian school street scene.

Spring out of bed to super views, not least of the church, from lovely, vaulted-ceilinged top floor bedrooms, and from your main suite below, where you can also wake up to an invigorating shower in your stylish, light-filled wet room.

An exciting, immaculately finished family home which still has scope for adding value is quite a combination. Agent Note: Images showing furniture have been virtually staged using ai