Welcome to The Elms.  Bright, light and ideal for those with young families, this lovely family home has voluminous living spaces, four good-sized bedrooms and an immaculate garden with an immense expanse of lawn for youngsters to run and play.  The Elms has the bonus of being within a three-minute walk of the local primary school, Grove CE Primary (Ofsted-rated ‘good’)!

The kitchen is the convivial hub of family life while the three spacious living rooms offer complete flexibility and are a blank canvas to tweak to your own taste. Also on the ground floor there’s a study, utility room and cloakroom/WC. Upstairs, the principal bedroom is a peaceful oasis complete with its own bathroom and there are three further bedrooms – all doubles – and a big family bathroom.

The green-fingered owners have cherished their spectacular rear garden, flanked by mature trees and shrubs in curvaceous flower borders with a lush lawn at its centre and two separate patios. The front garden has gravelled parking space for four cars.

Invaluable for those who work from home, the single garage has been converted to an office with side-door access.

Everyday life is a breeze at The Elms with a couple of supermarkets, three pubs and a Costa Coffee shop just a short walk away. We’ve given you a tempting taste of The Elms, so here are the finer details . . .

A house with room to grow

Sitting well back from the road, The Elms’ five-bar timber gate opens onto a gravelled courtyard with plenty of room to park in front of the house and alongside the former garage (now an office).

Smart and impressive, the gas centrally-heated half-brick, half-rendered house has a pleasing symmetrical façade with a timber front door, sheltered by a porch, opening into the entrance hall where the contemporary glass-sided staircase rises to the upper floor.

There’s a lovely, practical flow to the living areas starting to the right of the hall,  which opens into the ultra-spacious 21x13ft sitting room, bathed in natural light via a bay window to the front and a set of sliding patio doors at the other end linking to the super-sunny garden room.

A modern wall-inset living flame gas fire is the warming focal point of the sitting room and it’s the perfect place to relax, watch TV, or enjoy some family time. Double doors lead into the adjoining 13x10ft snug – a great spot for the grown-ups to chill out with a book and a glass of wine away from the family hubbub! However, a door directly to the kitchen also makes it ideal as a formal dining room, or as a playroom – you can keep an eye on the children while you’re busy in the kitchen.

The indispensable family hub is the ultra-spacious 21x9ft kitchen/breakfast room. Fitted with attractive cream farmhouse-style wall and base units and a matching double-width Rangemaster cooker with electric oven and gas hob, it exudes a welcoming, relaxed vibe. Light streams in via the window above the sink and glass doors into the garden room and there’s practical ceramic tiles underfoot and granite worktops. There are an integral dishwasher and freezer too.

A breakfast bar, with wine rack beneath, has space for a couple of stools – a great spot for school-day breakfasts or for adults to take a moment with a cuppa, the papers, and a view of the beautiful garden running down to open fields behind. Expand the dining options by adding a sturdy farmhouse table and chairs - there’s plenty of space.

An adjoining utility room takes care of laundry requirements with plumbing for washing machine, dryer and so on, and a door to the garden creates a buffer zone to the main house - muddy walking boots and gardening gear can be removed here!

Running two-thirds of the width of the house, the 20x8ft conservatory-style garden room overlooks and opens on to the garden and is the perfect place to kick back, relax and, with underfloor heating, it’s all-year-round delightful for drinks with guests or as an additional dining venue. Sofas, table and chairs fit in nicely.

A useful 9x8ft study and cloakroom/WC complete the abundant ground-floor accoutrements of this fantastic house.

To the front of The Elms, the existing single garage has been converted into a nifty office space. It’s perfect for those who work from home with space for a couple of desks, or it could perhaps be a  hairdressing/beauty salon, gym or art studio. If required, it can be converted back to a garage by removal of the floating floor.

Sweet dreams

Upstairs at The Elms, the bedrooms are equally alluring and spacious. The master suite is particularly large (21x11ft) and luxurious with views over the fields and flooded with loads of natural light via a duo of windows in the corner of the bedroom area. Fitted wardrobes and overhead storage span the bed and there’s a sweep of fitted drawers and a dressing table on the opposite wall. The room narrows slightly to a dressing area in front of further built-in wardrobes and there’s a modern en-suite bathroom.

Two of the three remaining bedrooms are good-sized doubles and the third is a small double. The second largest, with built-in wardrobe, would be perfect for guests, otherwise you have three excellent bedrooms that children will love.

An L-shaped bathroom meets all the family’s needs with a freestanding white bath tub with shower attachment and a corner shower cubicle.

Breathtaking gardens

If you are looking for a gorgeous ready-made garden then The Elms is perfect for you! It is simply gorgeous and a result of the painstaking cultivation and maintenance by the current owners. The summer is, of course, the best time to appreciate its glories with the gently undulating borders surrounding the huge expanse of manicured lawn in full flowering beauty, interspersed with beautiful shrubs and shaded in parts by mature trees.

A duo of paved terraces, one in front of the garden room and another to the side of the garden catch the sun at different times of the day, and there’s scope to extend these if desired.

The entire garden is fenced, making it safe and secure for children to play, and there’s plenty of room for play-frames, trampoline, or kicking a ball around. A green-painted shed provides storage for mowers, garden tools and so on.

Round and about

Grove itself is well-served, and a Tesco Express, Costa Coffee, pharmacy, bakery, hardware store, off-licence, fish and chip shop and Chinese takeaway can all be found at Millbrook Square. Elsewhere in the village there’s also a Co-Op convenience store.

Wantage is the place to do a supermarket shop – it has Waitrose and Sainsbury’s stores, lots of lovely independent shops, pubs, restaurants, cafes and leisure options.

There’s a village hall and a trio of pubs – The Bay Tree, which serves great Sunday lunches, the community-minded The Bell with its regular live music and quiz nights, and The Volunteer Inn. A little further afield you are spoilt for good foodie pubs such as the superb Greyhound at Letcombe Regis, the picturesque Boar’s Head at Ardington or the highly-rated Eyston Arms in East Hendred.

Grove CE Primary School is just round the corner from The Elms, while the local secondary school, King Alfred’s Academy, is in Wantage and Ofsted-rated ‘good’. Didcot Girls School (seven miles) is rated ‘outstanding’. There’s an amazingly wide choice of independent schools in South Oxfordshire including St Hugh’s, Chandlings, Abingdon School, Radley College, Our Lady’s, Moulsford Prep, Cranford House and Pinewood.

Grove is adjacent to picture-perfect walking country and the recreational pursuits and relaxation it presents are a major attraction of life in this leafy part of Oxfordshire, close to the Ridgeway trail and the iconic White Horse Hill.

Grove sits adjacent to the A338, leading to the A420 for direct access to Oxford and Swindon. Commuters can swiftly access the M4 and M40 and train services to London Paddington run from Didcot Parkway station, nine miles away, every 20 minutes.

FINER DETAILS:

Square Footage:         2,080

Distances:                   Wantage 2 miles
                                    Didcot 9 miles
                                    Oxford 14 miles
                                    Heathrow 59 miles

Trains:                         Didcot Parkway to London Paddington from 37 minutes

Council Tax Band:      G

Local Authority:          Vale of White Horse District Council |

Heating:                      Gas Fired Central Heating

Tenure:                        Freehold

What3Words:               ///muted.fund.euphoric