Fresh fields and pastures new The pandemic turned out to be a catalyst for buyers and sellers to bring plans forward
Farms and estates are more popular than ever, both as investments and as places to escape the rigours of city life
ACCORDING to Alex Lawson, head of farms and estates at Savills, ‘in 2020, lifestyle and amenity farms and estates were highly sought after across all price points and geographical regions, as the desire for more space and access to the countryside became a priority. Scotland and northern England saw an increased demand for greenfield forestry land in response to the rising “net-zero carbon” agenda and some Highland estates were sold for their environmental rather than their sporting credentials. Non-farming buyers accounted for 34% of deals, with new non-farmer or lifestyle purchasers making up half of these—a proportion we haven’t seen for quite some time’.
Consequently, Savills anticipates great demand for quality farms in 2021, also for those with strong amenity or environmental value, such as Folly Mill near Thaxted, Essex, a charming 222-acre residential and sporting estate that came to the market late last year.
For sale as a whole or in two lots, it comprises a Grade Ii-listed manor house, a range of traditional outbuildings, an established shoot and an agreeable mix of arable and pasture land, interspersed with mature and semimature woodland. The agents (01245 293258) quote a guide price of £2.75 million for the whole or £2.42m for the manor house, outbuildings and 175 acres of land.
Situated in a private, but accessible location in a popular part of north Essex, to the south of the market town of Thaxted and five miles from Great Dunmow, Folly Mill was acquired in 1938 by the Renton family who, over the course of the past 80 years, have turned the estate into a well-known shoot, renowned both for its sport and its house parties.
The focal point of the estate—albeit in need of some updating—is the pleasantly unspoilt, 4,214sq ft, timber-frame main house, which dates from the late 16th century. The building incorporates a 17th-century west wing and a modern, single-storey east wing that boasts some fine historic features, such as a 15th-century entrance door and 17thcentury panelling. The accommodation comprises three main reception rooms, including a 36ft-long drawing room, plus a kitchen and a laundry on the ground floor; six bedrooms, three bathrooms and a study on the first floor; and a one-bedroom apartment with an office, in the east wing.
The house sits in mature gardens and grounds, with amenities such as an outdoor swimming pool and an area formerly used as a grass tennis court. Outbuildings include two garages, a workshop and a modern grain storage barn. The farmland is gently undulating, its rolling landscape interspersed with woodland well laid out for the shoot.
‘A year ago, we couldn’t have been more surprised to see the market for high-value country houses, farms and estates bounce back the way it did after a desperate year—both
politically and economically—in 2019. In 2020, a year dominated by the “escape to the country” trend, farms, estates and country houses valued at more than £5m saw the strongest growth in the three months to December. The pandemic turned out to be a catalyst for buyers and sellers to bring plans forward and even the second national lockdown failed to halt the market’s momentum, with the number of new prospective buyers registering with our country department up 42% in November, compared with the five-year average’, reveals Clive Hopkins, head of farms and estates at Knight Frank.
His firm has kicked off the New Year in style with the launch onto the market of Corn Mill Farm at Lower Kilcott, eight miles from Tetbury, Gloucestershire—an idyllic small country estate in the scenic Kilcott Valley between the Cotswold Hills and the Berkeley Vale, to the west. For sale at a guide price of £5m (01285 882001), its focal point is an impeccably restored 17th-century former ‘gryst mill’ set in 107 acres of ring-fenced farmland— a mix of ancient pastureland, meadows and deciduous woodland rising from the bottom of the valley to the top of the escarpment, with glorious westerly views towards Wales. The land flanks the house to the north, east and south, adjoining the Midger Wood wildlife sanctuary to the east and, to the far south, the Duke of Beaufort’s Badminton estate.
The enchanting, 5,206sq ft Cotswoldstone house was comprehensively restored and extended in the early 1990s by its then owner, Trevor Reeves, one of Margaret Thatcher’s advisers and speech writers, with guidance from local architect Robert Hardwick. The farm was then briefly owned by an American oil heir and racehorse trainer before being acquired by its present owners in 2001. They embarked on a further programme of improvements, adding the leisure complex, additional garaging and a tennis court. They also invested in the land, restoring boundaries, hedgerows, water features, grassland and wildlife habitats, and adding the ancient woodlands of Lizens Wood and Mickley Brake in 2006.
Approached from the village lane along a tree-lined drive, the historic mill house is ideal for entertaining, having a large
galleried entrance hall overlooking the dining hall and a beautifully proportioned drawing room. The bedroom accommodation is split between four bedrooms in the core of the house and a self-contained guest annexe on the lower ground floor, which has views over the garden to the mill pond and the woodland above.
Although the present owners don’t actively farm the land, overall maintenance of the gardens, grounds and estate is handled by a long-standing manager, with income derived from basic farm payments, grazing licences (cattle in the summer, sheep in the winter), shooting and wood sales.
Northumberland-born Sam Gibson of Galbraith in Hexham (01434 693693) is selling picturesque Woodburn Hill at East Woodburn in Redesdale, his impeccably restored 125-acre farm that overlooks the village on the fringe of the Northumberland National Park, as he awaits a return to the family farm that was his childhood home. A guide price of £1.75m is quoted for Woodburn Hill, which sits among rolling hills in the lee of Darney Crag— an area renowned for some of the darkest night skies in England—with frontage to the Lisles Burn, a tributary of the Rede that teems with wildlife.
The traditional Georgian stone farmhouse at Woodburn Hill had been unoccupied for the best part of seven years and was almost uninhabitable when Sam and his wife, Emily, bought the property four years ago and embarked on a major programme of renovation and modernisation. The unusually light and spacious building offers comfortable family accommodation on three floors, with two main reception rooms, a large living kitchen with a 30ft-high ceiling, six bedrooms, four bathrooms, a study, a games room, a studio/ gun room and various utilities. It comes with a separate home office with full-fibre broadband connectivity, a traditional outbuilding with planning consent for conversion to a twobedroom cottage and various other stores and outbuildings.
The land at Woodburn Hill, all laid to grass with dry-stone wall boundaries, is currently let on a grazing licence until March 25 to local graziers (‘good stockmen and extremely amiable’), who pay an annual fee of £8,000 for a maximum of 250 ewes with lambs.