Captain Tom’s family home on sale for £2.25m months after unauthorised spa demolished

Captain Sir Tom Moore’s family home where he raised millions for the NHS has been put on sale following a planning row which forced the veteran’s daughter to demolish a spa building on the property.

The Old Rectory in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, where Sir Tom walked 100 laps of the garden to raise money for NHS Charities Together in 2020, is now on the market for £2.25 million.

The 3.5 acre site boasts seven bedrooms and four bathrooms, being described by Birmingham-based estate agents Fine & Country as a historic rectory and coach house with semi-moated gardens.

The property’s advertisement includes multiple references to the Army veteran in an attempt to entice buyers, with pictures of the house’s hallway showing a statue of Sir Tom with his walking frame.

He lived at the Bedfordshire property with his daughter, Hannah Ingram-Moore, 53, and her family, who came under fire last year for the construction of an unauthorised building on the land of the Grade II-listed home.

The advertisement brochure describes the home as “owned by the family of Captain Sir Tom Moore who spent his final years there raising money for the NHS during the Covid pandemic”.

Ms Ingram-Moore also gave insight into the property, adding: “It is a playground for young and old alike: a particularly special memory of our time here is of my father walking 100 laps of the garden to raise a record-breaking sum of almost £40 million for NHS charities during the pandemic!”

Applicants, however, will need to provide identification for all those wishing to view the property and sign a confidentiality agreement in advance.

Prospective buyers will be able to review the remains of the Captain Tom Foundation Building, which was demolished in February after workers were seen dismantling the building’s roof and knocking down brick walls.

It comes after Ms Ingram-Moore and her husband, Colin, lost an appeal against an order to remove the building after claiming the spa pool, gym and office complex was meant to help rehabilitate elderly people.

Central Bedfordshire Council had granted planning permission for an L-shaped building in the grounds of the Old Rectory but refused a retrospective application in 2022 for a larger C-shaped spa building.

Diane Fleming, the inspector, told the October 2023 hearing that the “scale and massing” of the building had resulted in harm to the Grade II-listed property.

The Captain Tom Foundation was shut down in October 2023 after becoming the subject of an investigation by the Charity Commission amid concerns over its management and independence from Sir Tom’s family in the midst of the planning row.

Sir Tom was knighted by the late Queen in summer 2020 after raising nearly £40 million for the NHS at the height of the first national Covid-19 lockdown before his death in February 2021.