Plenty of room at Bramble Lodge

Rose Martin is impressed by Bramble Lodge, a massive property with plenty of stylish rooms.

AT first glance, Bramble Lodge has a hint of the Surrey Downs, or the look of a Kentish cottage with its broad, brown beams and wood lap gable.

But inside it's the Auvergne, with its creamy colour palette and hand painted, French furniture. And despite being a massive, 5,300 square foot, Bramble Lodge is a very manageable property with room sizes that aren't extravagant - there's just a lot of them there.

The house has four bedrooms in the main building and a fifth bedroom in the guest wing, which is designed to function as a separate apartment, if needs be. At the moment, the ground floor of this substantial extension is used as a billiard room and is accessed through the sun room at the side. There's a well-fitted, modern bathroom adjacent to the billiard room, and an old fashioned staircase leads to the bedroom overhead. The most outstanding feature is the balcony, accessed through French doors at one end, giving views over the woodland to the front. The room is delicately decorated in soft white cotton with dove grey curtains in silk and occasional furniture in pine and white. A little bathroom is tucked in under the eaves. Fittings are to a very high standard.

Tiles for the roof were hand-made in France and all the windows came from Sweden. Bathroom fittings are also good, and the hand-built kitchen, utility room and other cupboards, were the work of French joiners, brought over specifically to do the fit-out.

There are four main reception rooms: a lounge, family room, dining room and a sun room. The main living room faces to the front and has a big, inglenook fireplace in red brick that almost takes up one wall of the room. And, while the windows outside have a dark stain and leaded lights, inside they're painted in matt white.

The living room is at a lower level than the main hallway and so has an authentic, cottage feel with a small staircase leading to the ladderback doorway. A well-shelved study is tucked away in a little room to one side of the fireplace and furniture is classic with big cream sofas and antique pieces. The lighting is soft, Laura Ashley chandeliers, and one imaginary touch is the use of copper piping as curtain rails in the bay window.

Back in the main hallway there's access to all the rooms in the house and many interconnect. The family room, also with inglenook, runs into the galley kitchen and has a casual dining area at one end, while formal dining takes place in the elegant, red dining room.

The kitchen has a blend of old pine, painted freestanding units and granite and teak worktops. The centrepiece is the large, Aga which also fires the heating system.

As the owner is an architect and engineer there are no shortage of features here and, despite being just seven years old, the house looks like it could have been standing for two hundred. The main hallway has a whispering gallery painted in soft white, with lots of big old beams on show, and the look is continued with a rough plaster finish.

The French, feminine touch is what lifts the house above the ordinary and makes it welcoming place. The location, tucked inside a huge tract of woodland on the approach to Crosshaven, makes it a Hansel and Gretel house, says selling agent, Carol Harris of Property Choice. Ms Harris said she would be looking for offers well over €2 million.