If you like the idea of living in a castle but cherish your creature comforts, an 18th-century sham castle may be perfect for you. Regency Gothic is one of the prettiest styles in architecture, and on the outskirts of Welshpool in Powys stands a prize example - Llanerchydol - attributed to Humphry Repton, who is today more known for his garden landscapes than his buildings. For £3.25 million, you also get 70 acres and an impressively long drive that climbs through woodland to emerge in a handsome park with the house peeping through trees.

As I drove up, sheep were sheltering beneath every tree. Repton, unlike Capability Brown before him, did not believe that parkland should run right up to the house, and a pair of stone gatepiers marks the entrance to the ornamental grounds around Llanerchydol, packed with banks of rhododendrons. The house, pictured below, bristles with battlements, turrets and distinctive hood-moulds to the windows. The sandstone facing, veined like marble, is still in excellent condition with the pointed arch windows diminishing in size on each floor.

I was met by Melvyn and Karen Buckley, brother and sister, who have spent four years reviving the house. They bought it with much original furniture and have added more. The house cannot have looked better for many years.

The entrance hall, painted a welcoming claret red, contains a splendid hanging stair with a handsome iron tracery balustrade. On the right, the dining room beckons, rich and dark, its walls hung with a pressed Victorian paper, imitating gilt Spanish leather. The dado (the wall from floor to waist height) is faced with a stylish Art Nouveau pressed paper with Tudor roses on long stems.

The oak Regency doors retain the original tracery. Beyond is a modern kitchen, then the old kitchen with its huge cast-iron range intact. “It cooks extremely well,” says Melvyn, an antiques dealer and painter. Below the triple sash window are twin Belfast sinks set in a 15ft draining board made from a single plank. A corridor leads to a lavatory with a Victorian thunderbox complete with burnished woodwork and a plunge handle.

The double drawing room on the other side of the hall is elegantly feminine, with large bay windows, white marble fireplaces, slender colonnettes and ceiling ribs, and a delicate cornice of gilt oak leaves. The upstairs bedrooms, in strong warm colours, have splendid four-poster beds, and the bathrooms are fitted with handsome re-enamelled Victorian baths. From the windows you look over a circular lily pond backed by banks of shrubs or down to a formal garden with box hedges and the Welsh hills beyond.

Llanerchydol incorporates a house built in 1770s for David Pugh, who had made a fortune in the tea trade. The initials of his descendant (also David) are on the archway leading through to the stables, denoting the extensive Regency remodelling. Beside the gate an enchanting battlemented clock tower cries out for repair. Beyond is a handsome red-brick stable block with original looseboxes; this also needs repair, although there is obvious potential to create flats for staff or relatives, or to make a delightful studio office.

The Buckleys now want to recoup their investment and move to a smaller house. You can enjoy their four years of intense effort on the house and tackle the outbuildings at your leisure. Be sure, though, to leave time for the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway, which departs from opposite the entrance to Llanerchydol and steams its way up the valley.

Fact file

What you get: Grade II listed seven-bed house, six-bed west wing, two-bed flat,70 acres.

Where is it: One mile from the centre of Welshpool in Powys.

Price: £3.25m, Savills , 01952 239500.

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