Solefields Road, Sevenoaks | £1,850,000
A handsome family home built in the 1950s and thoughtfully extended in 2005, Norfolk House offers close to 3,500 sq ft of versatile living space behind a gated entrance, moments from the High Street, mainline station and sought after schools.
Details
Bedrooms: 5Bathrooms: 3
Receptions: 3
Square Feet: 3709
-
The entrance hall sets the tone for a home that has been extended with real thought, opening onto rooms that flow easily into one another for both everyday family life and proper entertaining. The drawing room is the standout, running to more than 36 feet and enjoying light from three sides, with a handsome stone mantled fireplace as its natural focus. Doors lead directly out to the garden, so the transition from indoors to out feels effortless in the warmer months. The dining room sits alongside, opening into a bright conservatory that catches the sun and makes a lovely spot for a slower breakfast. The kitchen and breakfast room is generous in scale at close to 25 feet, with a separate utility room keeping the everyday practicalities out of sight. A further reception room offers the flexibility so many families are after now, equally suited to a snug or a proper home office.
Upstairs, the principal bedroom is a genuine retreat, double aspect with a walk in wardrobe and a stylish en suite bathroom with a separate shower cubicle. Four further double bedrooms all benefit from fitted wardrobes, and two recently renovated bathrooms serve the floor with a finish that matches the rest of the house. A new boiler, zoned air conditioning and a security system have all been fitted, so the practical side of running a home this size has been quietly taken care of.
The approach is via a shared drive to a brick pillared gated entrance, opening onto a gravel driveway with ample parking and a detached garage with an electric door, alongside useful finished storage space. It is the gardens, though, that set Norfolk House apart. Mature planting to the perimeter gives a real sense of seclusion, with level lawns and shaped beds wrapping round the rear and side of the house. A paved terrace with a fountain makes an ideal spot for al fresco entertaining, and an attractive summerhouse adds a further point of interest across the plot, which extends to approximately 0.34 of an acre in total.
Norfolk House suits a family who wants room to grow into, both inside and out. It works as well for a quiet Tuesday as it does for a garden full of people on a summer weekend, and that kind of flexibility is genuinely hard to find.
Location Guide
Norfolk House sits on Solefields Road, right in the heart of Sevenoaks, a market town perched on a Kent greensand ridge with a proper High Street and a thousand acre deer park at the edge of it. It's the kind of place that manages to feel like a village on a Tuesday morning and a proper town at the weekend, with independent shops and cafes doing steady trade alongside the school run and the market stalls.
Transport Links
Sevenoaks station is well within walking distance and gets you into London fast. The quickest Southeastern services reach Cannon Street in around 30 minutes and Charing Cross in around 31 to 34 minutes, which makes the daily commute genuinely manageable rather than something to dread. By road, the Chevening interchange gives quick access to the M25 at Junction 5 and the A21, putting Gatwick and the wider motorway network within easy reach, along with Bluewater for a bigger shopping trip.
Education
Solefield School, a well regarded day prep for boys and girls aged three to thirteen and part of the Sevenoaks Family of Schools alongside Sevenoaks School, is on the same road as the house. Sevenoaks School itself, one of the country's best known co-educational independents, is a short walk away, as is Walthamstow Hall, a long established girls' school taking pupils from two through to eighteen. New Beacon School offers a boys only prep option, and Weald of Kent Grammar provides selective state education for girls. Knole Academy serves the area as the local state secondary.
Local Attractions
Knole itself is the obvious draw, a National Trust property with more than six hundred years of history and a thousand acres of parkland that make up Kent's last medieval deer park, much of it free to explore. Closer to the station, Bradbourne Lakes offers an easy walk around five ornamental lakes with small waterfalls and plenty of birdlife, and the Kent Wildlife Trust's Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve sits just beyond it for a longer stretch of the legs.
Entertainment and Leisure
Bligh's Meadow, the town's pedestrianised shopping centre, sits alongside the High Street and hosts a market twice a week selling flowers, pastries and locally made produce. The surrounding streets, the Shambles, Dorset Street, Bank Street and Brewery Lane, are worth wandering for independent boutiques and cafes. For eating out there's a genuine spread, from Number Eight and Wagamama to smaller independents like Buntastic Coffee & Lunch plus Hattusa, while the Restoration on Bank Street has been pouring pints since 1592. The Stag Community Arts Centre rounds things out with a 450 seat theatre and two cinema screens, giving the town a proper cultural pulse beyond the shops.