Durford Edge, Petersfield, Hampshire, England

This 1923 English estate comes with a catch -- the Harrier jet parked on its front lawn is sold separately. 

It's a decommissioned plane that was bought on eBay. It's no longer allowed to fly, but it makes for one heck of a lawn ornament. It sits in a historic garden designed by renowned horticulturalist Gertrude Jekyll. 

However, as you might expect from seeing the decorative warplane, although the outside of the house looks like a chocolate box cottage...

the kitchen is factory spic and span:

Meanwhile, the living room looks like it's not quite sure where it belongs:

If it were mine, this is the design I would land on:

{Studio McGee}

Similarly, the dining room looks a little too plain for the plane.

I would add a chair rail around the room...

and paint it all in some nice atmospheric colors:

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Durford Edge has 8,000 square feet, which includes six bedrooms. 

It was recently remodeled  to create a striking stairway tower.

The estate also includes a separate guest cottage, The Hollow, that overlooks the pond. 

It has four bedrooms and three bathrooms.

The house was built for mathematics professor J.P. Gabbatt. I couldn't find much about him, except that in 1924 he wrote a letter to Gertrude Jekyll. 

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She was helping him design his garden via correspondence. This is the site of the iris garden (photo 1):

Photo 3, the tree and the little wall:

Photo 2, the front of the house:

Only part of her designs are still intact, but there are photographs of it in this book. I've ordered it from the library and will update the post if it has good pictures. 

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UPDATE: It did have good pictures. This is the original dining room, although it looks more like the living room with the beams running a different direction. (I'm not sure which room it is.)

By the 1920's, Gertrude Jekyll could certainly pick and choose her projects, and the reason she chose this one is because she admired the house's architects, Unsworth and Triggs. She worked with them over three years to design the round rose garden, azalea garden and orchard, specifying the plants and ensuring that the local nurseries had them.

In the meantime, this is the parterre garden as it looked in 2011 and how it looks now:

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The original kitchen garden and orchard have been "laid to lawn," which makes sense when you need space for an over-scaled ornament like a Harrier jet. I wonder if Gertrude Jekyll would have approved.

The listing is here. Please don't tell Mr. If It Were Mine that the plane is for sale now.