Lincolnshire commercial arable farm will excite market

This year’s first big test for commercial farmland sees more than 1,800 acres come to the market next week in Lincolnshire.

The Stubton Estate is a well-equipped, all-arable farm with pockets of woodland. As well as its main house, there are five cottages and good modern grain storage for 6,000t.

On Grade 2 land, it lies between Grantham and Newark and is being sold by family business Gangeheath following the death of its chairman last year. The farm is for sale in up to three lots ranging from a 1,075-acre equipped unit to blocks of 277 acres of bare land.

Strutt & Parker is looking for offers of more than £16.75m, citing the farm’s accessibility, land quality and size as the key attractions.

“The Stubton Estate will be one of the most important sales of 2013,” said the firm’s Charlie Evans.

“I am expecting good interest in the individual lots from local farmers. Equally, this is the most significant opportunity investors in land have had for at least six months, so I expect there to be good interest in the whole.”

Large field sizes across varied soils allows flexible cropping, including sugar beet, potatoes and vegetables on parts of the farm. There is a commercial shoot of about 14 days a season providing regular 300-bird days. The estate has abstraction licences for almost 500,000cu m/year, which will be split pro-rata if the estate is not sold as a whole.

The core of the estate sits in Lot 1 and includes about 1,075 acres of land and the main house, which has five bedrooms. The farm buildings and four cottages, let on a mixture of statutory and assured shorthold tenancies, are also in this lot.

The buildings include a high-specification grain store, built in 2006, with on-floor storage and drying for up to 5,000t. A secondary store provides up to 1,000t of crop or general storage. The land in this block includes pockets of woodland and some irrigation.

The second lot offers about 462 acres and Brownlows Cottage, a three-bedroom brick barn conversion, as well as traditional buildings with conversion potential. Most of the land in this block has irrigation.

Arable land at Fenton makes up the third lot – about 277 acres with small areas of spinneys and internal tracks.

Almost 687 Single Farm Payment entitlements are included in the sale, with the current owner retaining the 2013 payment. (Strutt & Parker 020 7629 7282)