If your house is on the market for £10 million, there are sure to be plenty of selling points. But a “£5 taxi fare” from the village of Alderley Edge is not one you would expect to find on the list. However, Sally Clowes, who has owned Hare Hill Hall with her property developer husband, Tony, since 1983, is down-to-earth about the appeal of her Grade II listed six/seven bedroom Georgian mansion. “It has been a wonderful house for the family to grow up in, and now it needs another family,” she says. “Because it is so close to the village, it has meant that the boys have always been able to take part in lots of activities and have friends around easily.”

The boys, Toby, 25, and William, 21, have now left home, but this is still very much a family house. In the cellars, which once formed the kitchens, one room is given over to their Lego collection, another houses a Scalextric track and yet another has a snooker table, air hockey and table football. In an extension, added in 1995, there is a swimming pool, spa and sauna, and a 30ft x 20ft annex, which has another full-size snooker table, all directly accessible from the main house. “So many swimming pools are in the garden, but the best thing about this one is that you can walk straight into it from the house,” Clowes says.

Around here, easy access to your swimming pool is a big issue. Not quite as big as the planning row that engulfed the village last year, when local residents took umbrage to incomers and developers demolishing old houses to replace them with new properties — a situation that has been calmed by the recession. Or the debate over the bypass, scheduled to open in 2011, which will divert traffic from the centre of the village.

But swimming pools do matter because Alderley Edge in Cheshire, 12 miles to the south of Manchester, is probably the most glamorous village in the North of England. It has become famous as the haunt of footballers — the Beckhams, Sir Alex Ferguson, Cristiano Ronaldo and Michael Owen have all had or own homes here. A few years ago it was reported that more champagne was sold per head in Alderley Edge than anywhere else in Britain.

The village is packed with bars, restaurants, designer shops, hairdressers and beauticians. There are several excellent independent schools near by, including Alderley Edge School for Girls and The Ryleys Girls and Boys Preparatory School in the village.

Manchester airport is only 12 miles away and the upgrading of the West Coast mainline means that London is accessible via train from Wilmslow (two miles away) and Macclesfield (eight miles) in less than two hours.

Hare Hill Hall is in Over Alderley, two miles from Alderley Edge. It stands in six acres of gardens and grounds, which back on to National Trust-owned parkland and include woodland, a croquet lawn/football pitch, tennis court, a sweeping drive that hides the house from Prestbury Road and plenty of room for a heli-pad. Jonathan Major, a partner at Strutt & Parker in Chester, which is marketing the property jointly with local agents Andrew J Nowell, says that this sense of seclusion, and the amount of land surrounding the house, helps to justify its £10 million price tag, hefty even for Alderley Edge. And special houses can command special prices.

“We have had continued market improvement since January 1,” he says. “Prices have not been dented really. It does vary from price band to price band, but the really special properties have held.”

So how does an agent value a property such as this? “Important factors are the location, the views [towards the Derbyshire hills], accessibility, having a long drive and a lovely approach to the house, the undercover garaging for eight cars, the leisure facilities,” Major says. “And then, of course, you have the house itself. I hate the word unique, but it does apply to Hare Hill Hall.”

The house, though imposing and framed by a stunning chinoiserie verandah, certainly has the feel of a cosy home. The reception hall leads to the drawing room, dining room, sitting room, kitchen/breakfast room, conservatory and family room, all abundant with light, which is unusual in a late-18th century house.

So far there have been three viewings but no offers. Who does Major think will end up buying? It’s not stuffed with state-of-the-art gizmos, there is no home cinema, for example, so would footballers and their WAGs be interested? “Some footballers do actually prefer historic properties,” he says. “But people should not underestimate the serious wealth up here in the North West.”

Presumably, whoever ends up as the new owner of Hare Hill Hall will have a spare fiver in his or her back pocket for that taxi ride into town. JD

Strutt & Parker: 01244 354851, struttandparker.com Andrew J Nowell: 01625 585905, andrewjnowell.co.uk

Few locations entirely resemble their gossip column image. The exception to this rule is Alderley Edge in Cheshire, routinely and pretty accurately depicted as the high-end but friendly village where soap stars, footballers and their wives and girlfriends (WAGs) live it large — in mansions with swimming pools and garages for their Bentleys and Ferraris.

On a recent Saturday afternoon in Alderley Edge I saw three real Chanel handbags within the space of ten minutes. The owners of these £2,000-a-throw accessories were blonde, dressed in £235 J Brand skinny jeans and discreetly spray-tanned. The window of Alan Jackson, which calls itself “butcher to the stars”, was full of expensive cuts of meat. Daniel, the smart shoe shop, featured £705 D&G over-the-knee boots.

Guide to Gold Trafford

“Gold Trafford” is the nickname given to Alderley Edge for its close association with Manchester United players: the city is only 12 miles away. The village’s most prominent new residents, however, are members of the Manchester City squad. Carlos Tevez is renting a house, reputedly for £12,000 a month, while Emmanuel Adebayor is reportedly in negotiations for the home vacated by Cristiano Ronaldo. The house is for sale for £3.8 million. But local real estate insiders say that “the property is too big for its plot and the swimming pool is ancient and too small, and needs replacing”.

One of the Chanel bag owners stepped out of a Bentley on to Alderley Edge’s swish high street, London Road, an appropriately named thoroughfare, for in few other places outside the capital are property values so high.

Those who live on Alderley’s hill pay the most for this sought-after position. Globrix.com calculates that Alderley Edge’s current average asking price is £888,596. The average for Cheshire is £280,380. Leafy Congleton Road, which leads into London Road, was named as the most expensive street outside the South of England in a Halifax poll in November 2008. The average price at that time was £1,684,166.

Alderley Edge did not escape the recession; its impact can be seen in the number of charity shops on London Road. But the mood is more upbeat, in contrast to the rest of the region. The latest Land Registry North West data shows prices down by 2.1 per cent, against the national trend. A seven-bedroom house on the road is on the market for £4.4 million: the joint agents are Andrew J Nowell and Stuart Rushton. Unsurprisingly, the property has a swimming pool. AA

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