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Mr. Navalny was hooked up to artificial ventilation at the hospital, Ms. Yarmysh said, adding that his supporters had called the police to the hospital. His condition was critical, she said.

Mr. Navalny campaigned forcefully earlier this year against a series of constitutional amendments passed in July, which included a provision to allow Mr. Putin to potentially rule until 2036. He had called for Russians to boycott a referendum on the amendments, saying the vote would be falsified regardless of the real outcome.

Since the constitutional vote earlier this summer, more opposition figures have found themselves under increased pressure from authorities. Some have been detained and had their properties raided.

Last year, Mr. Navalny said he was poisoned in police custody after supporting protests against the Kremlin in central Moscow. The Wall Street Journal couldn’t independently confirm this claim.

Kremlin critics have been hospitalized with suspected poisoning before. Vocal opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza was poisoned in 2015 and 2017 before recovering. In 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former double agent, and his daughter were poisoned in the U.K., where they lived.

“If I don’t go now, I never will,” she said.

Cothay Manor, which sits on almost 40 acres of grounds and has been featured in films and television, is for sale with Knight Frank for offers over $6.55 million.

When the Robb family bought Cothay Manor—which is pronounced Cott-ay—they were already old hands at running old houses.

Their previous home was a fire-damaged Queen Anne era (1702—1714) priory in Marlborough, about 80 miles west of London, which they had fully renovated. During the 1990s recession, their business, Marlborough Tiles, struggled. So they sold their home and bought another about 100 miles further west, where they were able to take advantage of lower house prices. They paid $1.172 million for Cothay Manor in Somerset county.

“They needed to raise some capital, so they sold the house, saved the business, and bought Cothay,” said Mathew Robb, 51, one of the couple’s four children.

But Cothay Manor is no compromise house. Its oldest sections date from before 1480 and Historic England, the U.K.’s official conservation organization, considers it an “outstanding” example of a Tudor country house. It has been awarded “Grade I” status, the highest level of landmark protection given by Historic England.

The home is on 38.8 acres, and includes outbuildings and stables.

Little is known of Cothay’s early history. According to Historic England, it was built by the wealthy Bluett family; the family coat of arms is still visible on the gate house. According to “Great Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300-1500: Volume 3,” by Anthony Emery, Cothay Manor was altered around 120 years later by its next owners, the Everys. Over the following centuries, according to Historic England, the main part of the manor has changed little. It retains its double-height great hall overlooked by a gallery, and a series of chambers decorated with faded frescoes that Historic England dates at around 500 years old. A “new wing” was added in the 1930s.

Although the house was in sound structural condition when the Robbs bought it, the problem, in their eyes, was its 20th-century décor. The house was full of midcentury furniture. There was some minor damage: The rubber underlay beneath the carpets caused the ancient oak flooring to warp. “The whole place had no charm at all,” said Mrs. Robb.

The family set about redecorating, including hand-painting flowers on the walls of the great chamber, now a second sitting room. Then Mrs. Robb began filling it with what she calls “wonderful furniture” dating from the 1600s, which she sourced at antique fairs.

In the dining room, there is cornicing with a design of vine leaves and pomegranates with, in each corner, a face. Mr. Robb suggests they may possibly be likenesses of the craftsmen who did the work.

According to “Gardens of Britain and Ireland” by Patrick Taylor, the grounds had been laid out in the 1920s by its then-owner, Colonel Reginald Cooper, as a series of “rooms” surrounded by tall yew hedges. But it had fallen into disrepair by the time the Robbs bought it, said Mrs. Robb.

“We took everything out, just leaving the bones of it—the hedges and the trees—and we replanted it all,” she said.

Today, each outdoor room has an individual character, from the spiky garden filled with architectural plants to the bog garden, planted with species comfortable in damp conditions, all linked by planted “corridors.”

Cothay Manor already had an ornamental duck pond, and the family decided to repurpose its outdoor swimming pool as another pond filled with lily pads. But Mrs. Robb’s late husband wanted something more ambitious. So he created a lake, complete with two islands. There is an arboretum of rare trees and a wildflower meadow in the backyard, and some of the grassland is leased to a local farmer to graze sheep.

Running such a large property is expensive and time consuming. Mrs. Robb employs two part-time gardeners. A handyman and a man to maintain the biomass boiler which heats the house and the water both visit weekly. She cleans the home herself. To help foot the running costs of the home, Mrs. Robb has monetized the manor. House and garden are opened to the public during the summer, and there is a tea room and nursery selling plants.

Opening the house means developing a thick skin. Mrs. Robb recalled a conversation between two elderly visitors. One toured the house while the other remained outdoors. When they were reunited, the tourist told her companion she’d missed nothing but a house full of “tatty rugs” and “old brown furniture.”

Cothay Manor is also used as a wedding location and has appeared in films and on television including “Dr. Dolittle” starring Robert Downey Jr., and the BBC adaptation of the “Wolf Hall” trilogy of novels.

While Mrs. Robb and her dogs, Billy and Darlingirl, occupy the five-bedroom, three-bathroom main section of the house, the side wings have been divided into half a dozen rental houses and apartments.

Mrs. Robb’s husband died in 2015, aged 85. Mrs. Robb decided to sell Cothay Manor because she said she would like to release some equity to distribute to her children. She says she intends to stay in Somerset.

Mrs. Robb said she rejected her son’s suggestion that she downsize to a three- or four-bedroom home. In a smaller place, she asked, “what would I do with all my treasures?”