Devon and Kent farms come to market

A 173-acre farm with sporting rights and an 18th-century thatched farmhouse is coming to the market near Honiton, Devon.

Pitfield Farm, surrounded by the Blackdown Hills area of outstanding natural beauty, has been owned by the same family since 1988.

It has a good range of versatile modern farm buildings and stabling, with the ring-fenced land down to pasture, woodland and wildlife ponds. There are also several attractive traditional buildings.

See also: Farmland market review and outlook – South West 

The farm comes with sporting rights and has hosted a local syndicate shoot for several years.

Symonds & Sampson is marketing Pitfield Farm and has set a guide price of £3.25m as a whole, but is also offering it in up to five lots.

Cleave Farm © Strutt and Parker

Also in Devon, Cleave Farm is an 84-acre former dairy holding at Hatherleigh. This has farm buildings that, subject to planning, have potential for alternative uses.

There is a farmhouse and a four-bedroom barn. The farmyard sits on a separate roadside site a short distance from the farmhouse and has a pair of large modern farm buildings.

Marketing agent Strutt & Parker says the farm would suit equestrian diversification, holiday lets, camping, glamping and a host of similar uses.

Cleave Farm is being offered for sale because the current owners are planning to relocate to be closer to family.

The land is a mix of productive grass and mixed-species ancient woodland with ponds, a river, a new Countryside Stewardship agreement and far-reaching views to Dartmoor.

Cleave Farm is available as a whole at a guide of £3m. A further 80 acres, with a cottage and buildings, is available by separate negotiation.

Clay Hill Farm © Batcheller Monkhouse

At Tunbridge Wells in Kent, Batcheller Monkhouse is bringing 138-acre Clay Hill Farm to the market at a guide of £3.25m.

This grassland holding is secluded and has a four-bedroom farmhouse, a lake and woodland.

There is additional accommodation in a detached two-bedroom annexe, converted from a former garage.

Buildings include a fishing lodge, a machinery and hay store, a feed store and main barn.

The land is made up of six blocks of pasture across about 87 acres and there are 35 acres of woodland.

Diverse income in Somerset and on Isle of Wight

Two farms with income streams from established diversification enterprises are coming to the market.

Hackthorne Farm, with 33 acres at Henstridge, Somerset, with a six-bedroom period farmhouse, has been occupied by the Curtis family for more than 80 years.

Hackthorne Farm © Woolley and Wallis

They are now planning to retire and have instructed Woolley & Wallis to market the former dairy holding.

Income is generated from three holiday cottages and there is potential to increase this as planning permission for a Class Q conversion was granted in October 2023 for the change of use of an agricultural building to a two-bedroom dwelling.

The property also has a range of other outbuildings.

All the land is down to grass, with fields divided into manageable enclosures by mature hedgerows. The soils here are base-rich loam and clay.

Hackthorne Farm is on the market at £1.625m for the whole or is available in five lots.

Non-farming business ventures have also been established at Glebe Farm on the Isle of Wight.

The 53-acre ring-fenced grassland farm at Calbourne has a livery yard for 10 horses and six static caravans for the holiday market, with potential to add to these, says marketing agent Symonds & Sampson.

Glebe Farm © Symonds & Sampson

The three-bedroom farmhouse has been recently refurbished with a new central heating system, internal wall insulation, replastering and redecoration.

The Grade 3 farm has slightly acid loamy clay soils and is on the market at a guide of £1.65m.