Productive farms offering scale and scope hit market

Several highly productive farms are about to hit the market, offering a wide range of cropping, livestock and diversification opportunities.

The largest is Cedar Farm at Alderton, near Woodbridge, Suffolk. It has 1,379 acres of highly productive land, just over 1,000 acres of which is irrigable.

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There is a Grade II listed principal farmhouse and very good farm buildings totalling more than 50,000 sq ft.

These include 1,500t of grain storage, a packhouse, cold store, workshop, general purpose buildings and a farm office in a barn conversion.

Adjacent to the Suffolk Heritage Coast, the soil types are predominantly well-drained sands, Newport 4 and Newport 2 series, while there is about 245 acres of Wallasey 1 series heavier peaty ground.

The farm has 442,000cu m of summer abstraction and 250,000cu m of winter abstraction licences.

The business has been centred on high value vegetable crops, complemented by a traditional combinable crop rotation on the heavier soils, says Oliver Holloway of selling agent Clarke & Simpson, which has set a £21m guide price for the farm.

Cedar Farm has three further houses and a farmstead, while planning permissions are in place for barn conversions and five log cabins.

There are 18 well-serviced mobile home accommodation units along with welfare facilities for seasonal workers.

The 50 acres of grassland and woodland has been actively and sensitively managed and there is good sporting potential.

© Symonds and Sampson

In Dorset, Preston and Crook Farms, at Tarrant Rushton near Blandford Forum, offer just over 952 acres of Grade 3 land in arable and livestock enterprises, with eight residential properties.

Agricultural and residential property portfolios of this size and quality rarely come to the market in Dorset, says Will Wallis of selling agent Symonds & Sampson.

“The estate has been farmed by the vendors since 1938 and comprises arable, beef and pig enterprises. The land and buildings have been exceptionally well tended to by the family over the decades,” says Mr Wallis.

There is a five-bedroom main farmhouse and seven further residential properties, five of which are let, two are vacant.

The farm has substantial ranges of modern and traditional buildings, two airfield hangars and a telecommunication mast. Part of the property was an air base from 1943 to 1947.

The holding is in the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs area of outstanding natural beauty and in a nitrate vulnerable zone.

There are no agri-environment schemes in place. Sporting and mineral rights are included.

Preston and Crook Farms have been lotted nine ways, with an overall guide price of £13.895m.

Diverse opportunity in East Anglia

© Brown and Co.

A further East Anglian farm comes to the market next week, also with irrigation.

Hall Farm at Northwold in Norfolk has about 292 acres of productive arable land in a single block adjoining the River Wissey.

The farm has significant investment and diversification potential, says Rowley Barclay of Brown & Co.

There is a modern 1,000 tonne grain store and farmyard with a range of traditional brick and flint buildings, which have a positive pre-application reception for change of use to three residential units.

The traditional detached three-bedroom farmhouse needs updating,

There is an option agreement for a solar development lease on 50 acres, while the River Wissey is a chalk stream providing more than 1km worth of fly fishing for brown trout.

Hall Farm has an overall guide price of £5m and is being marketed as whole or in three lots.