An ultra-modern barn conversion sitting idyllically among fields in around an acre, with up to 6 bedrooms, a 36 ft wide kitchen/ day room with an entirely glazed West-facing aspect, cinema room, and underfloor heating throughout. Unrepeatable!

Souldern is a small village on the North Oxfordshire border, seven miles south-east of Banbury with roots going back at least 900 years. For those in the know it is one of the few remaining truly secluded villages, tucked away off a single entry road and hence almost unknown to most. This is what gives it the feeling of a peaceful lifestyle mostly lost today. There is an excellent pub/restaurant The Fox Inn, a Norman church, a chapel, a village hall, plus play area and playing field.

Souldern is also one of the few villages in the area served by high speed fibre-optic broadband, making working from home truly viable. Banbury, Brackley and Bicester are all within easy distance with a good range of shopping and leisure facilities, and there are shops in many of the nearby villages. Bicester also offers the unrivalled facility of Bicester Village as well as a 45-minute rail service to London Marylebone. The M40 motorway at junction 10 is about three miles away and access to both Northampton and Milton Keynes is also straightforward. There are many reasons to live here. But as much as any, its access to beautiful Oxfordshire countryside on the doorstep, community spirit and tranquillity make Souldern the sort of place that people rarely want to leave.

Foxhill Barn is the brain child of our ever so slightly eccentric, classic car nut client! The challenges that converting this barn presented scared off every other possible buyer - and even after purchasing it, anyone else would have given up when facing such insanities as quotes of over £200,000 just for bringing in mains water! But with determination bordering on obsession, the remains of the 18th century barn have been transformed into an uber-modern house with the most incredibly light West-facing open-plan living space with its West wall ALL glass. It has the air of a holiday home about it, with the high ceilings in the main living area accentuating the already large space still further. And then there's the outside. Unsurprisingly there's massive amounts of hard standing and shelter for cars behind double gates. Include this with the gardens and decking wrapping around the house and the overall plot is around an acre.

The feeling of remoteness, sitting with views of fields in all directions, belies the fact that the accessibility to everywhere is excellent. You can walk to the local pub in ten minutes. Road and rail links are just a few miles away. And with the advent of faster broadband in the last couple of years, working from home is as easy here as anywhere.

They say first impressions are everything.... The front porch with its pair of glazed doors and flanking windows gives a little hint of the style and ethos of what lies beyond.... Wide steps descend away from you down into a broad hallway, with a view right through the house and glazing to the gardens behind. The scale is immediately impressive, as is the finish; it's neat, unfussy, functional and very modern. And within this, the execution of the various spaces is intelligently done.

Splitting the house into parts, let's go right first. The utility room is fitted with simple white units and a tiled floor, with a thick wooden work surface that also accommodates a large sink. Beyond it, the first of up to six bedrooms features glazed double doors opening onto a decked terrace beyond which is delightful open farmland. And this room also hosts both a generous range of wardrobes and a pristine, modern en-suite bathroom.

Back to the hallway and the largest of the bedrooms follows a similar theme but to an even larger scale! The dressing space is complete with wardrobes either side, shelves and a fitted dressing table. Beyond it the bedroom is ample, with those same glazed doors opening to the same deck and view. And this time the en-suite features a bath as well as a separate shower.

On the left of the hall, starting at the steps, is a neat cloak room perfect also for boots and coats without cluttering the hallway. And next to it the boiler room houses a large, pressurised hot water tank plus various vacuum chambers to provide high-pressure hot water flow. Keep going and you reach a large bathroom with ample space for a chest of drawers or similar. Beyond, the hallway reaches two more bedrooms. The first is an ample double, looking out towards the hedgerow on the boundary to the driveway.

Next door, an even larger bedroom faces the same way, and wardrobes are built in. Another en-suite is fitted, mirroring the style of the utility with its pristine and simple white cupboards topped off with timber. And the corner bath has a "soaker" shower overhead. When we say clever execution, the cinema/ family room next door shows why. While a roof light would be a simple addition if desired, for a cinema room with a projector natural light is unwise. So for its intended purpose this room is uniquely well designed.

And now to the main spaces. Designing and fitting over 700 sq ft of glazing to the entirety of an end wall is a brave endeavour. But in this our client got the remit spot on. Facing West over fields, sliding doors open wide to invite the outside in more than most properties can offer. And that view!!! Far-reaching out across open farmland, it really is unique - as are the ever-changing seasons and sunsets to be enjoyed here, whether with the sliding doors open onto the full-width deck in the summer with a glass or two, or comfy behind them in the winter.

To write such almost forgets the living space it encloses. The kitchen is simply but generously fitted. A large breakfast bar-equipped island sits comfortably away from the units that run around two walls with a range cooker and a high quality sink flanked by granite work surfaces. At the other end of the room the main seating area is so large any suite sits comfortably here with room to spare. And while it's a huge space, the particularly stylish central-mounted wood burner is both a statement of "because we can, and isn't it fun?" as well as a wonderful way to give cosy warmth in the winter months. At either end a further room provides secluded room for working or dining, depending on your preference - with the room to the right enjoying that same lovely view plus access through double doors to the deck.

Outside needs a little explanation. The driveway only serves the local farmer's field access and this house. It comes down to two entrances, both gated. The first is a broad gravelled driveway with parking for a good number of cars. As our client is a classic car obsessive, two containers to the right (which will be removed) act as garages, but had his plans not changed these would have been replaced by a large multi-car garage - for which there is ample space. Beyond them, the lawn runs right across to the far fence, with some very pretty plants on the borders up against a post and rail fence. Steps flanked by stone-walled plant beds drop gently down to a further lawn that flanks the whole right side of the house next to the deck, again with pretty borders against the post and rail.

And at the rear of the house a large, multi-car concrete driveway is sturdily enclosed by stone walling in the centre of which are a pair of thick timber gates. The double car port off to the side also provides masses of sheltered storage, but could just as easily be simply converted for a wide range of other uses. There's also a shed plus a log store, amongst so much extra space that the possibilities of what you might wish to do are endless. And timber steps leads up, flanked by a slender planter bed in both directions, to the deck behind the kitchen.

Mains water, electric
Cherwell District Council
Freehold
Council tax band G
£3,443-06 p.a. 2022/23