Farms for sale offer diversification opportunity at all scales

Diversification opportunities are a key feature of farms coming to the market for sale or to let this week.

Ellacott, a 320-acre farming and sporting property at Bratton Clovelly, near Okehampton in Devon, is being offered for sale with five houses, a meat cutting plant, game shooting and a fishing lake.

The property, which comes with a price tag of £6m, is described by selling agent DR Kivell Country Property as a well-apportioned beef and sheep farm with dairy potential.

The organic-certified farmland is mostly grassland, but there are some cover crops planted for game, along with woodlands and wildlife strips created by the owners to provide game bird cover for the farm’s shoot.

A 1.5-acre lake stocked with brown and rainbow trout is used for fly-fishing, and a tributary of the Tamar, populated by wild trout and salmon, flows through the farm.

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A fully licensed meat hanging and cutting plant provides modern facilities to butcher and market meat and game.

As well as a mix of steel portal and timber frame sheds, there are traditional stone buildings.

The 16th century farmhouse has eight en-suite bedrooms. There is also a two-bedroom annexe, a four-bedroom house and two bungalows, one with three bedrooms and the other with two, providing opportunities for letting income.

The farm is entered into a Mid Tier Countryside Stewardship scheme until December 2028.

Cornwall tenancy

Tregoweth Farm © Carter Jonas

In neighbouring Cornwall, Carter Jonas is letting a traditional farmstead on a farm business tenancy of up to 15 years, from 29 September.

Tregoweth Farm, part of the Enys Estate near Penryn, has 123 acres of productive arable, pasture and parkland, a range of timber and stone farm buildings and a traditional Cornish stone-built farmhouse with three bedrooms.

Caroline Raspison, an associate at Carter Jonas, says the estate owners hope the holding can be maintained as a traditional farm but acknowledge that diversification may be necessary to make it viable.

Previously the farm has run sheep and arable, but in more recent years some of the ground has been put into the winter bird food option under Mid Tier Countryside Stewardship.

That agreement runs until December 2027 and entitles the tenant to annual payments of £9,523 for the 2025, 2026 and 2027 claim years.

East Sussex holding

Sharpes Farm © Batcheller Monkhouse

Sharpes Farm, at Henley Down, near Catsfield, East Sussex, is also coming to the market, with 32 acres of grassland and woodland.

One of the outbuildings has consent to operate as a microbrewery. The farmhouse has five bedrooms and there is also a flat above a garage.

Sharpes Farm is being marketed by Batcheller Monkhouse at a guide price of £1.6m.

Montrose farm with historic connection

A 602-acre arable farm incorporating land once owned by Robert the Bruce is due to launch this month.

Old Montrose Farm, at Montrose, Angus, is well-equipped and has been farmed by three generations of the same family for the past 95 years, initially as tenants before they bought the farm in 1995.

In a region well known for its fertile soils and temperate climate, the land is currently in 494 acres of arable and grass leys and 77 acres of pasture. There is also two acres of woodland.

Old Montrose Farm © Savills

The soils are a mixture of mainly sandy loams and brown earths, with areas of river silts.

There is an extensive farm steading including about 3,700t of cold storage for potatoes, 1,500t of ambient storage, 2,000t of grain storage and grain drying facilities.

A 39m, 80kW wind turbine generates power for the cold stores, with surplus power distributed to the National Grid.

There is about seven years left to run on a 2011 Feed In Tariff (FiT) agreement, providing an average annual income of about £25,000.

The modern farmhouse has four bedrooms, and two cottages are included in the sale, one of which provides accommodation for an employee and the other income as a short-term let.

Agent Savills is seeking offers of more than £6.75m for Old Montrose Farm.