Cost of country living soars

The luxurious, five-bedroom farmhouse set in rolling countryside boasts its own swimming pool, plus a leisure complex and 16 acres of land - and a price tag of just under £2 million.

But the colossal rise in value over the past decade has made Cobdens Farm in Dunsfold, Surrey, even more remarkable than the sprawling grandeur it offers.

The value of exclusive countryside properties is now rising faster than house prices in the most desirable parts of London and there is no sign of the huge demand subsiding.

Cobdens Farm has been sold twice in the past 12 years. In the depths of the house-price crisis in 1990 it was snapped up for £725,000. In 1993, before the recovery began, it was sold for £800,000. Now gracing the property pages of Country Life, the price is £1.95 million.

A typical family country house which fetched between £600,000 and £700,000 10 years ago would now cost well over £1 million - an increase of around 30 per cent.

"In the most sought-after counties of Surrey, Berkshire and Hampshire, a budget of less than £2 million is now 'small beer' when it comes to shopping for a 'proper' country house," said Country Life's property expert Penny Churchill. "This has led buyers to look well beyond the rural Home Counties to find the kind of country property they are looking for."

In 2001 Devon replaced Oxfordshire as the county with the most properties for sale, with a rise of nearly 40 per cent compared with 2000, in spite of Foot and Mouth. The price of the average country property in Devon is now around £550,000, with the best fetching up to £2 million.

But the price-rise trend is happening all over the country. Last September, Southrop Manor in the Cotswolds was for sale at a guide price of £4.5 million. This property was once valued at £15 - that was in the Domesday Book. There is also a recorded sale for £15,000 - in 1926.

The average price of a country property is now estimated at £600,000 - three times higher than the London average and six times higher that the average value of a home in Britain as a whole.

In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks the top end of the London market was virtually suspended. But the number of country properties offered for sale in October last year was almost 25 per cent higher than in October 2000.

Not everything is rosy, however. For example, the £25-million, Americanowned Sutton Place estate near Guildford was withdrawn from the market following the events of 11 September. It is now being split up into a number of individual properties to be sold separately.

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