The idyllic English assets where Oasis recorded its album Definately Maybe is on sale for offers of more than $2.9 million. The historic creekside recording studio in Cornwall also Kenneth Grahame’s vintage novel, The Wind in the Willows.
Opened in 1974 as one of the UK’s first residential recording facilities, the Sawmills Studi0, which played a role in the 1990s British pop scene, is where Oasis recorded their 1994 debut album Definitely Maybe. Other clients include The Stone Roses and Britpop bands such as Supergrass, The Bluetones, and Ocean Colour Scene.
Since it opened almost 50 years ago, The Sawmills Studio, which has been described as “legendary” by the media, has attracted artists such as Robert Plant and bands such as Muse, who recorded several albums there including Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry. Now this piece of musical history is on sale for offers over $2.9 million.
The world-famous recording facility has a romantic and tucked-away location in south Cornwall, set on its own private creek off the River Fowey between Fowey and Golent. It sits 32 acres of private woodland and is only accessible by boat–via an opening in the embankment between the creek and the River Fowey–and the Saints Way footpath, which runs through its land. The town of Fowey is just over a mile away by boat.
According to selling agent Richard Speedy of Strutt & Parker, owner Dennis Smith, a music business mentor who co-founded the studio, is selling the property as he is reaching retirement age. “The interest in the property is a 50-50 split between people who are intrigued by its musical history and recording studio facilities and high-net-worth individuals who are interested in its discreet location,” says Speedy.
The Sawmills studio is located in a 7-room 17th-century space, changed from a wooden mill known as The Old Sawmills in a park that includes a two-bedroom pavilion, lawn gardens passing into the creek, known as Bodmin Pill, two personal pontoons, woods and two outbuildings. He also has mooring rights in Fowey’s estuary, which is difficult to obtain, according to sales details.
The main space has period and trendy features, all its rooms, apart from a view of the creek, and has a terrace that opens onto a terrace, be it its lawn gardens, forests and streams. The creek and waterfall in the creek, meanwhile, will offer the relaxing sound of running water.
In the early 20th century, writer Kenneth Grahame visited near Fowey and it is widely accepted that the River Fowey was the inspiration for his e-book The Wind in the Willows. The old sawmills are probably the inspiration for the setting for Ratty and Mole’s first picnic exit in the first bankruptcy where they picnic on an important river near a mill. According to the main sales points of Strutt-Parker, the company that sells the house, “there is only one stream with a water mill in this town, Bodmin Pill, and the description fits perfectly and has replaced very little, apart from the water wheel and the color of the paint.”
The site of the property, which dates back to the Book of Domesday, used through the medieval merchants of Bodmin who chose this site as the landing point of the sea to avoid paying an upstream landing payment to Lostwithiel, the former capital of Cornwall, according to the sales details. The remains of a medieval pier can be seen at the head of Bodmin Pill Creek.
During World War I, the forest surrounding the wood-carved buildings used to make trenches on the western front. In 1943, The Old Sawmill applied through the U.S. Army. Arrangements for D-Day landings and their parked infantrymen created a hydroelectric assignment to provide heating and lighting for the property, according to their sales details.
The home is on sale with Strutt & Parker for offers over $2.9 million
I am a freelance journalist who has twelve years’ experience writing about property for UK national newspapers and online magazines.
I started my career at The Times of
I am a freelance journalist with twelve years of experience writing articles for British national newspapers and online magazines.
I started my career at the Times of London, where I spent 7.5 years writing for its Bricks-Mortar real estate section, which covered new housing, market research reports and internal design trends. I also wrote articles for the main paper and contributed to its Money section.
At The Times, I nominated for the Rising Star and “Staff Property Writer” awards at the UK Property Press Awards. In 2014, I filed a lawsuit at the annual New Designers Alumni Design Show.
Since mid-2016, I have served as a freelance journalist, genuine goods, design and architecture. I have contributed to The Spaces, AnOther, Dezeen, Mansion Global, The Calvert Journal, Sotheby’s Reside, Dwell Magazine, Bricks-Mortar and HomeOwners Alliance, where I worked as a part-time writer.