Sunrising House

Sunrising House stands high on Sunrising Hill looking out across open Warwickshire country towards Edge Hill. A tree-lined drive climbs to the rear of the house, where there is parking for several cars and two garages. The village lies below, with open farmland beyond.

Behind a handsome façade is a house built for a large family. Nine bedrooms, six bathrooms, two kitchens and a run of south-facing reception rooms give it real scale, and the gardens are drawn in closely around it, which keeps it private.

The house faces south. Sunlight moves through the principal rooms from breakfast until evening, and every window on that side of the house frames the same long view over the Warwickshire landscape. In summer the French doors of the dining room open onto the terrace gardens and become an extension of the house.

Upper Tysoe is a working village of ironstone cottages beneath Windmill Hill, ten miles from Banbury and its direct trains to Marylebone. Stratford-upon-Avon lies to the north, Chipping Campden and the Cotswolds to the west. The position is quiet without being isolated.

‘Sunlight moves through the principal rooms from breakfast until evening, and every window on the southern side frames the same long view across Warwickshire.’

The House

The drive arrives at the rear of the house, so the garden front is kept for the view. Rooms are generously proportioned and ceilings are high, and because the principal rooms run along the southern elevation, they are light from dawn until dusk, befitting the House’s name.

The reception rooms are arranged for entertaining on a considerable scale: a drawing room with twin bay windows and a sitting room, both with garden views, together with a morning room, a cinema room and a large formal dining room. A separate dining room at the end of the kitchen wing has French doors opening directly onto the terrace, and in practice, it is where the household eats from May to September.
The kitchen is the working heart of the house and is centred on a large combination AGA that runs off both electricity and gas depending on the season and requirement. It is a long room, with a central island and a seating area at one end. A pantry and secondary kitchen runs off it, useful when the house is full or when catering for larger numbers, and there is a utility and boot room beside the rear hall, together with cloakrooms. Beneath the house, the cellars extend to seven rooms, including the boiler room.

Bedrooms and Bathrooms

There are nine bedrooms and six bathrooms in all, arranged over the first and second floors. Five are on the first floor, where the principal bedroom occupies the south-west wing, with an en suite bathroom and dressing room, and the long view with it. A second bedroom has its own en suite bathroom and a large sitting room, and a third has an en suite shower room. The same floor also has a kitchen, a laundry and a WC.
The second floor holds a further four bedrooms, including the two largest in the house: one a particularly long room with its own dressing room and full kitchenette, and another nearly as large. There is also a full cloakroom with WC and a loft, all reached by a broad landing that is wide enough to work as a sitting area in its own right. The floor suits children, teenagers or guests and can be shut off from the rest of the house when it is not in use. Every bedroom on this floor has a working fireplace, and two of the bedrooms include kitchenettes, lending to the notion that these spaces can be entirely self-contained for guests or older family members.

The Flat

On the third floor, above the kitchen and within the main house, is a self-contained two-bedroom Apartment, well fitted and independently arranged with its own sitting room and kitchen. It has direct access to the main house and a separate door to the outside, which makes it equally suitable as housekeeper's accommodation, a nanny flat or a teenage suite. Let or occupied separately, it would not intrude on the main house.

Garden and Grounds

The gardens extend to approximately 1.09 acres and are laid out on the southern side of the house, falling gently away towards the countryside beyond. Mature planting encloses them on three sides, so they are secluded despite the openness of the view.
The gardens are divided into separate areas: a terrace off the dining room for eating outside, lawn below it, and established beds, with specimen and fruit trees screening the boundaries. There is also a separate, incredibly pretty courtyard garden outside the secondary kitchen. The tree-lined drive and the parking area sit to the rear, away from the garden front.

The swimming pool and pool house lie within the garden, sheltered by planting and catching the sun for most of the day. The pool house doubles as a private spa, with a steam shower inside and an outdoor Jacuzzi alongside. Beyond the boundary the ground drops to farmland, and the view runs uninterrupted across the Warwickshire countryside.

Sunrising takes its name from Sunrising Hill, where the Stratford Road climbs the Edge Hill escarpment above the Vale of the Red Horse. The vale takes its name from the Red Horse of Tysoe, a hill figure once cut into the red clay nearby and first recorded in 1607. A photograph held by the Warwickshire County Record Office records it as a substantial country house on the hill by the 1910s.

In 1918 Sunrising was bought by Walter Samuel, later 2nd Viscount Bearsted, as a weekend base for hunting. The son of Marcus Samuel, founder of Shell Transport and Trading, he had won the Military Cross on the Western Front and in 1921 succeeded his father as chairman of Shell. He was also one of the most discerning art collectors of his generation. Sunrising was then a working country household, with its own stables and grooms.

In 1927, the year he inherited his father's title, Lord Bearsted bought Upton House, a few miles along the same ridge. There Lady Bearsted transformed the gardens in the early 1930s, and he assembled the collection of paintings that he gave, together with the house, to the National Trust in 1948. Upton is now one of the Trust's best-known houses; Sunrising, where the Bearsted story in Warwickshire began, remains a private home.

Upper Tysoe is the highest of the three Tysoe villages, built of the local ironstone beneath Windmill Hill and set in the rolling country below Edge Hill. The village retains its church, village hall and public house, and the surrounding lanes are well used by walkers and riders.

Stratford-upon-Avon provides theatre, restaurants and everyday shopping; Banbury offers a mainline station and access to the M40. The Cotswolds begin a short drive west, with Chipping Campden and Broadway within easy reach. For those who enjoy the more sociable side of Cotswold life, Soho Farmhouse at Great Tew and Daylesford, with its farm shop, restaurant and spa near Kingham, are both within comfortable driving distance. Closer to home, there is good walking directly from the village along the Centenary Way and the Edge Hill escarpment. With the Upton Estate close by, the house is surrounded by National Trust walks, and it sits within the protected National Landscape (formerly an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).