General - Manor Farm is a delightful barn style property set in approximately three acres with outbuildings and one of Leicestershire's few vineyard. The barn is in a wonderful setting with panoramic Southerly views towards Desford. There is considerable flexibility as to how the accommodation is used. On the ground floor there is a sitting room , conservatory, breakfast kitchen, shower room, Dining Room (Bedroom 3), Study (Dressing Room). On the first floor there are two en-suite bedrooms. There is an extensive range of outbuildings, gardens and paddock. It should be noted that there is also a CCTV system.
Planning Permission was granted on 16th June 2017 for a single storey rear extension giving the purchaser the opportunity to create a stunning garden room measuring approximately 27' x 10'.
Location - Manor Farm is located on an exclusive courtyard development in the West Leicestershire village of Botcheston. There is a public house in the village and more comprehensive amenities in the nearby villages of Kirby Muxloe and Desford. Botcheston is well located for access to the motorway network and is also close to Fosse Park for shopping.
The Vineyard - The vineyard was established approximately 10 years ago is now reaching maturity. It is classified as a hobby vineyard and is planted with 500 "Rondo" and "Regent" vines which produce red and rose table wines. In 2017 we understand that the yield was approximately 1000 bottles.
Cloak/Shower Room - There is a walk in double shower enclosure with "Aqualisa" shower with fashionable tiling. There is a low flush lavatory, contemporary wash hand basin with oak effect cupboard underneath and mirror over. Chrome ladder style towel rail and tiled finish to the floor.
Sitting Room - 21' x 12'10" (6.40m x 3.91m) - This is a lovely rooms the focal point of which is the wood burning stove housed in a fireplace with a quarry tiled hearth. There is a dimmer switch, sliding patio doors opening into the conservatory. Central heating radiator.
Conservatory - 21'3" x 9' (6.48m x 2.74m) - This is a fantastic vantage point from which to enjoy the outstanding views. There is a contemporary vertical radiator and two electric roof vents. There are three sets of french doors opening both to the terrace and a door to the kitchen.
Dining Room/Bedroom 3 - 14' x 10'8" (4.27m x 3.25m) - Overlooking garden and countryside beyond. The current owners use this space as a reception room. However, it could be a bedroom with dressing room or indeed a sitting room for a dependant relative. Central heating radiator and door to:
Kitchen - 12'10" x 10'10" (3.91m x 3.30m) - The kitchen is fitted with a contemporary range of base and wall units incorporating a one and half bowl sink unit. The units are arranged around a "STOVES" range style cooker with seven burners, together with two ovens and a warming draw with extractor in canopy over. There is a crockery display cabinet and the gas fired boiler is discretely housed in one of the wall cabinets there is plumbing for a dishwasher and door to the conservatory.
Store - 9' x 9'6" (2.74m x 2.90m) - Please note that both these have been converted from the garage and of course the garage could be reinstated.
Master Bedroom - 18' x 10'5" (9'1" measured to 5' eaves height) (5.49m x 3.18m ( 2.77m measured to 1.52m eaves heig) - There is an impressive range of fitted furniture including wardrobes, bedside tables and chest of drawers. A particularly interesting feature is the main window which also wraps round forming part of the roof and allows light to flood into the room. Central heating radiator.
En-Suite - 14'10" x 7'8" (4.52m x 2.34m) - Spa bath on tiled platform from which the spectacular views can be enjoyed. There is a corner shower cubicle, wash hand basin and central heating radiator.
Guest Bedroom - 12'11" x 10'4" (9'4" measured to 5' eaves height (3.94m x 3.15m ( 2.84m measured to 1.52m eaves heig) - (extending to 12'8"). Spectacular country views. With cupboards to either side of the window. Central heating radiator.
En-Suite - Comprising panelled spa bath with shower over, low flush lavatory and wash hand basin. The walls are fully tiled.
Outside - There is a courtyard to the front of the barn over which Manor Farm has access. To the front of the barn is a walled foregarden. A drive leads down the side of the barn to:
Parking Area - There is a stoned parking area around which there area a useful range of outbuildings including a:
Gardens - Immediately adjoining the house there is a paved terrace which is a fantastic area for barbecuing and entertaining. There is a lawn with an ornamental pond adjoining which is a decked area and a Summer House.
Vegetable Garden - There is a vegetable garden with four raised beds which include an asparagus bed.
Workshop (Former Stables) - Divided in two. With power and lights. Could be converted back to stables.
Paddock - There is a good sized paddock which is relatively flat and in good heart. The vineyard is located to one side of the paddock.
Uplift Clause - There will be an uplift clause should planning consent be granted for any development that increases the value of the property for 25 years. The vendor will receive 20% of any increase in value. For the avoidance of doubt the clause will not be triggered for any improvements carried out to the existing property (even if the house is demolished and replaced by a single dwelling ) and ancillary buildings in connection with a single dwelling.
Late “Law & Order” actor Jerry Orbach is playing a starring role in a new legal drama — even though he died 10 years ago reports The New York Post.
The actor’s friend and former accountant is refusing to relinquish control over a Chase bank account belonging to Orbach’s company, Mingoya Productions, according to a new Manhattan lawsuit against the Westchester bean counter.
Chase claims Patricia M. Black, of Pleasantville, was ousted as executor of the estate of Orbach’s second wife, Elaine, a Broadway actress who died five years after her husband in 2009.
The new executor, Elanie’s sister Rita Hubbard, contacted the bank last October to inform them Black must be cut off from the account. But in court papers Chase says Black has “failed and refused to respond” to phone calls and letters regarding the dispute.
Orbach added Black as a signatory to the account in 2003, a year before he died of cancer at age 69.
Hubbard’s attorney, Steven Feinstein isn’t sure how much money is in the account because he has been denied access by the bank. According to legal documents he has told Chase that Elaine’s estate is the sole owner of Mingoya Productions and therefore the account too. Feinstein does not believe any funds have been withdrawn.
But apparently the bank is nervous it will be sued if it turns over the money to the wrong person and wants to determine who is the rightful owner of the account.
Orbach’s widow inherited her husband’s $10 million estate, and when she died it passed on to his children from a previous marriage.
The actor played Detective Lennie Briscoe in “Law & Order” for 12 years and was Jennifer Grey’s father in “Dirty Dancing.”
A Georgia dad convicted of murder after his 22-month-old son died in a hot SUV was sentenced Monday to life in prison with no chance of parole.
Jurors last month convicted 36-year-old Justin Ross Harris of malice murder and other charges in the June 2014 death of his toddler, Cooper. The malice murder conviction means they believed Harris left the young boy to die on purpose.
Prosecutors said at trial that Harris intentionally killed his son to escape the responsibilities of family life. They showed evidence he was engaging in online flirting and in-person affairs with several women who were not his wife, including a prostitute and an underage teenager. Defense attorneys said the boy&apos;s death was a tragic accident.
Harris wore an orange jumpsuit and showed little emotion, often looking down at the ground, as Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark read the sentence. Malice murder carries a sentence of life in prison, either with or without the possibility of parole.
Cooper Harris died after sitting for about seven hours in the back seat of his father&apos;s SUV outside the office where Harris worked in suburban Atlanta on a day when temperatures reached at least into the high 80s.
Ross Harris was sentenced to life in prison without parole for leaving his son, Cooper, in a hot SUV to die.
The dad said he forgot to drop his son off at day care that morning, driving straight to his job as a web developer for Home Depot, not remembering that Cooper was still in his car seat.
After determining during nearly three weeks of jury selection in April that pretrial publicity had made it too difficult to find a fair jury in Cobb County, where the boy died, Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark granted a defense request to relocate the trial.
A jury in Glynn County, located on the Georgia coast about 60 miles south of Savannah, spent about a month listening to evidence in the case and deliberated for four days before finding him guilty last month of all eight counts against him. In addition to malice murder and felony murder charges, Harris also was found guilty of sending sexual text messages to a teenage girl and sending her nude photos.
From bread line to online: Polish family reflects on how 1989 revolution changed their lives | Fox News
The communist era Palace of Culture, colorfully illuminated, is surrounded by modern skyscrapers, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, May 31, 2014. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz) (The Associated Press)
WARSAW, Poland – When communist Poland held its first partly free elections a quarter century ago, Cezary and Alicja Wasowski — expecting their second son — held hopes for modest improvements in their lives but not much more.
By the time little Michal was born three months later, it was clear they would be bringing up their son in world vastly different from the one they knew: Poland had just elected its first democratic prime minister in decades and the Soviet system was crumbling before their eyes.
Today, Cezary, Alicja and Michal travel freely abroad, read books once banned by censors and express views that reveal surprising generational differences — itself a triumph of democracy. The family spoke to The Associated Press as Poland prepares to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the historic vote on Wednesday, with President Barack Obama and other world leaders gathering in Warsaw to celebrate the democracy that began at the ballot box in Poland and spread throughout Eastern Europe.
"We knew that something was changing but we couldn&apos;t imagine the scale of the changes at first," said Cezary Wasowski, 56. "Then events happened so fast. They were truly revolutionary changes."
Like many Poles, he and Alicja have seen their lives improve in many ways. A state that once produced everything "from tanks to condoms," as Cezary put it, has opened up a huge sphere for private entrepreneurship, making his own rise possible as the head of a private engineering firm. His wife no longer spends endless hours in communist-era bread lines. Boundless plenty beckons from shops on every corner.
But they don&apos;t view all change as progress. They see a new a worship of money that is eroding a traditional focus on family and culture. They don&apos;t like how commercial Christmas has become. Their isolation behind the Iron Curtain seemed to deepen friendships and create more time for human interaction, something they miss.
The couple also feels that, in the birthplace of Lech Walesa and his Solidarity movement, too many people have become politically disengaged. They are particularly dismayed that fewer than 24 percent of Polish voters took part in the May 25 elections for the European Parliament.
"People complain that the prime minister is bad, the president is bad," Cezary said. "They just complain, but they don&apos;t vote."
Perhaps ironically, their son — who never knew communism — takes a harsher view than either of his parents of the Soviet era. "I know these were bad times, and I would never want to live in them," he said.
The Ukraine crisis has also brought back dark evocations of Moscow&apos;s dominance: Since Russia annexed Crimea and moved troops to Ukraine&apos;s eastern border, many Poles, including Michal, have wondered whether Poland is out of Russia&apos;s grip for good despite its membership in NATO and the European Union.
"More than 20 years have gone by and many things have changed," Michal said. "But we still see Russia as a threat."
The 1989 vote followed years of economic hardship that sparked nationwide unrest. Strikes in 1980 led to the birth of Solidarity under Lech Walesa&apos;s leadership. The regime tried to crush the movement the next year, with leader Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski — who died a week ago — imposing martial law, a system of harsh repression.
But there was no way to crush Polish yearnings for freedom. In 1988 a new round of strikes broke out that pushed the communist authorities to sit down for the so-called "Round Table" talks with Solidarity. Allowing the dialogue was a new man in the Kremlin, Mikhail Gorbachev, who granted unprecedented freedom to the Soviet satellites as he attempted to reform socialism at home.
The Round Table talks resulted in the communist regime legalizing Solidarity and an agreement to hold the June 4 elections. The deal created a new chamber of parliament, the Senate, and opened all of its 100 seats to free voting, while opening one-third of the seats in the more important lower house, the Sejm.
The results astounded everyone, even Solidarity activists — whose most ambitious dreams foresaw free elections four years later. Solidarity won 99 of the 100 Senate seats and all contestable 161 seats in the Sejm.
The march to full democracy became unstoppable and by the end of the next year Walesa was president.
Like many young Poles, Michal was raised with an awareness of his country&apos;s tortured history, leaving him to reflect on how his life differs from his parents in their youth. A journalist, he feels that professional life is much more competitive now than during communism, when the state guaranteed each person a job. He has piled work experience onto his studies to gain an advantage. His father sees things slightly differently. Excellence defined the Eastern bloc programs in engineering and the sciences and he feels his studies were so rigorous that a job on the side would have been impossible.
When Cezary served a year in the military in the 1980s, counterintelligence interrogated him on whether he had any foreign contacts, something the regime viewed with suspicion. After a trip abroad he, like all Poles, would have to return his passport to the authorities. He was forced to submit his master&apos;s thesis to the approval of the censors — even though his topic was decidedly apolitical, focusing on engineering aspects of the use of particle board in furniture.
These days, the family goes skiing in Austria every winter — and as EU citizens travel passport free.
Cezary and Alicja remember that much of their time under communism was spent just trying to procure foods and other basic goods given the constant shortages. If by chance they got access to something like sugar or vodka, they would buy as much as they could, store it under their bed and use it as barter for other goods they couldn&apos;t find.
"I can&apos;t remember a time when you couldn&apos;t get what you need in the shops," Michal chimed in. "I have never experienced not being able to buy something because even if it&apos;s not in the shop you just get it online."