La Grange - Beautifully Converted 4 bedroom Home with Heated Pool, near Daglan, Perigord Noir, Dordogne

La Grange at Le Clos du Comte is a beautifully converted stone barn, set in a stunning rural setting, comprising 4 bedrooms each with their own bathroom. There is a heated pool for summer, and underfloor heating in winter. The estate of Le Clos du Comte is truly idyllic. It sits on 18 hectares (approximately 45 acres) of unspoiled, utterly tranquil forest and pasture. Almost the only sounds you’ll hear are birdsong, or the chirping of the crickets on a summer’s day. Almost the only light you’ll see at night will come from the moon or the stars. It’s a nature lover and stargazer’s paradise. It originally dates from 1848, and is located in Mas de Cause, a hamlet about 2 km above the village of Daglan. Being high on the hills, it’s cooler in summer and warmer in winter than many of the villages in the valleys.

All the accommodation is on the ground floor. The kitchen/dining area, living room and the largest bedroom are all wheelchair accessible. La Grange comprises 4 bedrooms, 3 en suite bathrooms, a separate shower room and a separate toilet. There are two bedrooms with double beds (one king size, one standard), and each has an en suite bathroom (shower, basin and toilet). The third bedroom has two single beds and an en suite bathroom; the fourth bedroom has two single beds and use of a separate fourth shower and toilet. Each of the two largest bedrooms has plenty of room for a cot.

The building still has much of the character of the original barn. The door to the living area is in the huge archway built to take a horse and cart. There are two very attractive double stone lintels in the kitchen and one in a bedroom; these were, apparently, a rather ostentatious sign of the farm’s wealth at the time when the barn was built. The aim of the conversion was to keep these features while providing all the modern conveniences that you expect. We have tried our best to make our guests as comfortable as possible, right down to the crisp Egyptian cotton sheets and fluffy Egyptian cotton towels.

At the front, the barn looks out over a fragrant courtyard, filled with roses, lavender and jasmine. At the back there is a lovely terrace with a big sunblind when needed, with a view over a field and coppice towards a walnut grove.

The gorgeous pool, shared with our other gites, is 12m x 5m and has a built-in seat at one end where you can laze in the water on those hot summer days.  It's surrounded by plenty of chairs and loungers and beautiful landscaping, and heated to 26C in summer. 

The property teems with wildlife year-round.  In September and October, during and after rutting season, the red deer stags converge behind our house with their harems to battle it out and, when the fighting is over, to graze.  Roe deer can be seen any time – and frequently make a nuisance of themselves in the garden!  The wild boar are most visible on winter evenings, when they’ll emerge from the forest to eat any walnuts left over in the groves.  Spring and summer are the time for birds.  For the last 10 years, we have had kestrels nesting in various niches near our bedroom window.  The courtyard provides homes to black redstarts, swifts, blue tits and sparrows.  In summer, the hawks soar on the thermals, and we see or hear blackbirds, robins, cuckoos, hoopoes, owls, woodpeckers, finches, nuthatches, wrens …… I could go on.  In spring and autumn, we’re right under the migration route of the cranes.  And there are butterflies everywhere.     

The local region is known for its wealth of history, and Le Clos du Comte has its own history, too. During renovation work, we found fossilised figs and a boar tusk. The land has clearly been worked for millennia – we’ve also dug up a variety of prehistoric stone tools. The farmhouse, which dates from before the French Revolution, was originally a convent with its own chapel. At some point, the property became a farm, producing wine; it stayed that way for centuries, and our reception is in the original winery. During World War II, the wine became the subject of dispute between the occupiers and the Resistance, the then-owners fled, and the forests were taken over by the Maquis. Nowadays, the land peacefully produces walnuts and hay.