Staffordshire property firm boss Fred Pritchard sells home for £2m
[gallery] The home of a troubled Staffordshire property firm boss has been sold for almost £2 million.
Chairman of the Pritchard Group Fred Pritchard has owned Brocton Lodge for the last two decades – and it has now been snapped up for around £1,995,000.
The Georgian country house, once a farmhouse and part of the Brocton Hall estate, has been bought through Savills Estate Agents by a private buyer with plans to use the Lodge as a residential property. The sale comes after a raft of property owned by the Pritchard Group had to be sold off last year in bid to pay off the firm's £100 million debts.
The 8,415 sq ft Brocton Lodge is approached through wrought iron electric gates and along a gravelled driveway with immediate access to the upland area of Cannock Chase.
Thought to have been built as a 17th Century farm house, Brocton Lodge was once owned by the aristocratic and land owning family, the Chetwynd's.
Developed in 1812 by Sir George Chetwynd, as "an elegant modern mansion", the house was remodelled with a striking stucco façade, deep sash windows, and a Tuscan colonnade between flanking bays. The house has since had a series of owners and tenants which have included Redvers Buller of the Zulu War Campaigns, the Thorneycroft family of the Vosper Thorneycroft company and Colonel Guy German, one of the great Second World War escapees from prisoner of war camp Colditz.
Brocton Hall boasts 10 bedrooms, a reception hall, a drawing room, dining room, sitting room, billiard room, kitchen, study, garden room, butlers' pantry, servants hall and cellars.
A former stable has been converted to a pool room with wave pool, sauna, shower room and French windows opening to a sheltered paved seating area.