BUNNY HALL comes with as many extras as a Bollywood mega-mansion. First in view is a deer park with 40 head of red and fallow deer and two llamas, then the fountains. But statues can be ruinously expensive, so the owner, Chek Whyte, a contractor who began in the demolition and recycling business and is now a successful developer, ordered them from China in marble as white as Carrara. There are gazebos, fleurs-de-lys parterres, a tennis court, stabling for four horses and garaging for eight cars, although his Bentley and Rolls-Royce stand on the gravel.

The house, in Bunny, near Nottingham, has early 19th-century reception rooms with double doors as large as those in a grand New York mansion, perfect for large gatherings of guests to circulate. In the early 18th-century wing there is a columned Roman-style swimming pool with an electrically operated roller deck strong enough for children to walk on. It comes with its own bar and kitchen as well as steam room, sauna and gym. Upstairs there is a cinema with leather chairs. There are eight en suite bedrooms, as well as a two-bedroom and a three-bedroom apartment.

With Bunny Hall you get an aristocratic hero, the wrestling baronet Sir Thomas Parkyn, who was born in 1662 and whose splendid life-sized monument stands in the parish church across the road, portraying him poised for a bout of wrestling. He rebuilt the hall and built a wall around the park. The annual wrestling match he established continued for 99 years. He competed himself; his footman and coachman on occasion defeated him in the ring.

The main feature of Parkyn’s house is a 60ft tower, below left, built to provide a magnificent panorama of the hunting country all around. Seen from the village it looks like the tower of a Baroque church. From close to, the composition is stranger still, with a pair of massive stepped buttresses supporting the tower inset with archways that ought to be sentry boxes.

As Whyte says: “This house will appeal to people who want all the history that comes with a Grade I listed building but don’t want the hassle of repairs.” Price: £4 million. Savills, 020-7409 8881

FACTFILE

WHAT YOU GET: Grade I house in 13 acres with porte-cochãre, orangery, cinema room. 19,397 sq ft plus 2,542 sq ft garage. WHERE IS IT: Seven miles to Nottingham, eight to Loughborough and nine to East Midlands airport.
SCHOOLS: Ratcliffe College, Nottingham High School, Trent College.
WHERE TO EAT: Radcliffe Arms, Bunny (reached via gate in garden wall).
PERFECT FOR: Oligarch who wants a country pad.

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