IT'S one thing working from home in a cramped study but quite another when you are based in a listed Gothic-style villa which looks out on to wooded grounds.

Ogscastle, near Biggar, currently doubles as a home and company headquarters, so when inspiration goes into freefall, you can hug one of the trees on the 49 acres of land.

Bordered on two sides by the South Medwin River, the approach to Ogscastle is as romantic as a Daphne Du Maurier novel. South-facing, the property is reached through a sweeping avenue of lime and beech trees, passing a lodge to a circular carriage driveway in front of the house. Continuing past the east side of the property, the driveway leads to a range of traditional and modern buildings on the north side.

Built in 1817 in Regency style with early Gothic influences, the two-storey house has principal rooms on the upper floor, with the lower rooms, formerly additional bedrooms, converted into office accommodation where the present vendors run their international business.

Although Ogscastle is ideal for home-and-office use, the office accommodation could easily be converted into one large family house.

Sweeping balustraded stone steps lead up to the main entrance on the south side with a fine stone porch into the reception hall. This floor houses the drawing room, study, library, gallery and five bedrooms. The garden floor houses office and living accommodation which includes a farmhouse kitchen with custom-built units and an oil-fired Aga, pantry, laundry with airing pulley, breakfast room and four offices which could easily be converted into bedrooms.

Concentrating on work could be a problem as the formal gardens hold many distractions including an extensive rockery with a series of ponds forming a water garden. Then there is the network of gravel pathways and low box borders, productive herb, vegetable and fruit gardens, not forgetting the small orchard.

Facing south across the garden, the Victorian glasshouse is a hothouse of productivity. In addition to the main house, a lodge cottage protects the entrance to the estate, with a further two-bedroom flat in the stone courtyard. Ogscastle has good stabling and modern outbuildings formerly used to service the estate but these are now now used as workshops and storage for the business.

One piece of unfinished business connected with the property is that Ogscastle was bought in 1815 by Michael Linning who sponsored the Edinburgh Folly, the unfinished national monument to the heroes of the Napoleonic Wars on Calton Hill.

Ogscastle is around five miles north of Biggar and within commuting distance of both Edinburgh and Glasgow. Offers over #600,000 are invited, telephone Allison Campbell at Smiths Gore on 0131 555 1200.