To the manor reborn

So there we were, desperately looking to trade up from our modest three-bedroom Edwardian semi due to a pregnancy in the family further cementing our local reputation as reckless oinks (one income, numerous kids), when one day we woke up and found ourselves in a spacious six-bedroom property set in 44 acres of manicured lawns, mature woodland, apple orchards, horsey paddocks and fragrant meadows.

And our secret was? Well, doubling the mortgage helped (though, to be honest, everything else we looked at that came anywhere near the space we needed was going to be just as financially ruinous). But the real secret was that we would get to share our lives with 70 other people.

Communal living? No way, I said. An Englishman's home is defined by his garden fence. But once my wife had marched me down to the building society at gunpoint, I began to see sense. Yes, we would have to share washing-line, garbage and sewage-plant facilities with "other people", but on the upside we would be able to send the children out to play in the forest and not expect them back till the autumn. We would once again have a sex life we could call our own. How much was it again?

Our household is one of 30 in the grounds of what used to be a Georgian manor house in Hertfordshire. The main - listed - building has been tastefully jigsawed into stylish if odd-dimensioned dwellings (some with giant rooms, others like rabbit warrens depending on whether you got the ballroom or the servants' quarters). There's an old converted stable block, a row of period-lookalike houses and then there's ours, a way down the hill from the others - a double-glazed, upwardly extended red-brick semi dating back to the 1950s, when the place was bought up and run as a private school. It's not a work of architectural genius - indeed it may be a work involving no architectural interference at all - but the rooms are as big as it said on the tin and the views are lovely all year round.

But what about those other people? When we first moved in, I was loath to walk around as if I owned the place (which, strictly speaking, I did - or at least as much as anyone else) and clung to the apron strings of our own front door for fear of being shot as an intruder. But eventually I noticed how peaceful it was, even at weekends. I took a walk round the meadow, saw the blue flash of a kingfisher shooting across the pond, exchanged strained rictuses with the driver of a car coming up the drive, waved at the gardener. I was a bit worried about the lists of do's and don'ts, though on closer inspection they seemed to be sensible ones gently aimed at encouraging residents not to peer through other people's bathroom windows or make the place look like inner-city Naples by stringing laundry up between the statues. (Yes, we have statues. What's wrong with that?)

So actually it wasn't bad at all. When we moved in, we had a letter from the residents' board with everybody's phone number on it, including ours, but no one rang us up to make us play bridge. Someone turned up with a pot of homemade jam, but it wasn't a terrible moment. We settled in. Our neighbours are exactly the right side of neighbourly - we have their kids in our house to play and they have ours; we have a drink together on our adjoining patios sometimes in the summer. We know each other well enough not to have to share our every fleeting thought about the weather.

And those communal elements that brought me out into a sweat turned out to be a false alarm. There are monthly and annual meetings at which vexatious issues arising from dog-walking or skateboarding are diplomatically raised; there might be a vote to resurface the tennis courts (did I not mention the tennis courts?) or to decide whether we should spend good money having our ancient trees checked by a tree surgeon or just wait until one falls on somebody. And every summer there are cricket matches and a croquet tournament, which I enjoy from a safe distance. I'm happy to be roped into carol singing at Christmas and there's a jolly afternoon party for everyone early in the New Year, when the kids are allowed on the roof of the big house on the understanding that none of them falls off while the adults are busy getting drunk.

The rest has become routine. The children spend a lot of time in the spare room playing computer games if the sun is shining, or out getting muddy somewhere if it's pouring down. From my study window I can look over our communal garden fence at the farmer ploughing his field or harvesting corn, depending on what season I'm avoiding doing any work in. And once a week, I lose my way walking up the half-mile of drive in pitch darkness, wondering about the original lord of the manor, who is said to be buried in the woods but appears on horseback to drunks who have just got off the midnight train from London.

Up to now he has been good enough to respect my privacy.

To buy an apartment or house in a stately home, try a national estate agent such as FDP Savills, 020-7409 8872, who can put you in touch with a relevant branch.