How do you improve on perfection? This was the question on my mind last week when I was invited back to Encombe, one of the most beautiful estates on the South Coast of England to remain in private hands. When it came up for sale in 2002, Encombe had changed hands only four times in more than 1,000 years - so why was an American merchant banker, Charles McVeigh, selling it for £25 million after only six years, as The Times exclusively revealed last week?

The McVeighs are leaving only because they have found another house to restore. Interest in the sale has been rapid: Mark McAndrew, of Strutt & Parker, says that there have already been half a dozen viewings “with more to come”. He adds: “There are more buyers than sellers at this level of the market.” Alex Lawson, of Savills, agrees: “For superb houses with sporting rights and this acreage of land, there are always buyers waiting in the wings.”

Encombe, on the Dorset coast, steps straight from Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca, a great ancestral house overlooking the sea, approached down a long, winding drive. The sense of anticipation is intense as you drive through the unspoilt stone villages of the Isle of Purbeck, past the ruins of Corfe Castle, continuing upwards through woods until you are high above the Channel. At the top, the panorama explodes upon you, with two magnificent headlands rising almost sheer from the sea. Between them is the 2,000-acre Golden Bowl with pasture sweeping down to sheltering trees and woods. It is a vision of Heaven as Capability Brown might have imagined it, with pale straw-coloured pasture on the high ground and velvet emerald-green turf around the house.

Encombe is entirely built of a beautiful dove-grey local stone, in places weathered to a deep pink. The best view of all is that of the garden front seen across the lake, with the long façade stepping back and forth in the lively manner of the almost contemporary Horseguards in Whitehall. Once you are inside, the lustre of relaxed, comfortable country-house living is all around you. The broad entrance hall isfurnished with deep Howard sofas, while the panelling, previously painted white, has been stripped to reveal the best English oak, now gently limed. The interiors are handsomely but quite sparingly furnished so any buyer can imagine themselves moving in. Today life in almost any country house revolves around a grand kitchen. The McVeighs' kitchen looks out through floor-to-ceiling glass set in a colonnade, providing an intoxicating view over lawns to the lake, which curves gently into the distance, merging with the sea.

Times Archive, 1806: Sales by Auction, the Manor of Encombe

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The spacious drawing room and high-ceilinged dining room have the blond carpets and matting that continue through the house. Most attractive of all is the long yet cosy Victorian library, with books on every wall.

Six years ago Encombe was an enchanting, gently decaying time warp. Now every room is smart and comfortable. Every bathroom is an original, a hymn to the virtues of Edwardian plumbing, resplendent with French and English porcelain baths.

One wing is a self-contained house. At the other end a second front door opens into a masculine realm, furnished with antlered heads and cages of Victorian stuffed birds and complete with a gun cupboard in the form of a walk-in safe. With its steep contours Encombe provides the very best in high-flying birds, pheasant and partridge, in glorious scenery. From Chapman's Pool below the house there is seabathing and fishing from the rocks.

Encombe comes with ten outlying houses and cottages, including a dairy house, garden house and a temple-fronted stable block. All are comfortably fitted out and ready to let. Your children can be christened in a chapel on the estate. Of course, even paradise has its challenges. For example, will the wild garlic smother the bluebells that carpet the woods in spring?

Fast facts

What you get: Grade II* listed Georgian house with 13 bedrooms, ten estate houses and 2,015 acres.

Where it is: Seven miles from Wareham, Dorset, and 16 from Poole.

Price: £25m via Savills, 020-7409 8882, and Strutt & Parker, 020-7318 5171.

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