Scottish market launches for Highland Show

Six farms covering 2,369 acres are being launched across Scotland by Strutt & Parker, while a 1,000-acre arable unit near Edinburgh comes to the market with Savills in time for the Highland Show.

The largest holding in the Strutt & Parker portfolio, all of which are good, commercial holdings farmed in-hand, is 635-acre Shields Farm at Milton of Campsie, close to Glasgow.

This is a stock farm, half of 
which runs up the hill, with the other half productive land offering good silage yields. It includes a farmhouse and a potential site for a second dwelling, and is looking for offers over £1.1m.

See also: Good sized arable land starts to come to market

Three others are also stock farms. In the south-west of Scotland, Artnoch Farm at Barrhill, in Ayrshire, has a farmhouse and 283 acres with a guide price of offers of more than £795,000.

In the west, Arnod Farm’s 516 acres at Campbeltown, Argyll, include a farmhouse and a small bothy for offers over £775,000. In the east, Piper Pool Farm at Saline, Fife, has 123 acres, again with a farmhouse, and is likely to be looking for something more than £450,000.

Westerhouses Farm is the second-largest unit offered, with 424 acres of good, mixed farmland supported by excellent farm buildings. Five farm cottages and planning permission for a new farmhouse push the guide price to offers over £1.9m. “The market is short of supply and Westerhouses stands out as a good farm of its type,” says James Butler of Strutt & Parker.

There is one all-arable holding – Orwell, Tarhill and Hattonburn Farms run to 387 acres. It also, coincidentally, offers planning consent, in this case for a “superb”, new country house overlooking Loch Leven; there is already a farm cottage.

“With a lot of smaller farms dominating the market, it will be interesting to see how the market responds to these,” said Mr Butler.

(Strutt & Parker 0131 226 2500)

Savills is launching a substantial arable unit a short distance south of Edinburgh. Southside at Pathhead runs to more than 1,000 acres – there has not been an arable farm of this scale on the market for some years.

The guide price is for offers of more than £4.5m, as a whole or in seven lots, and includes an attractive listed house, extensive range of buildings, 790 acres of arable land, 170 acres pasture and 43 acres of woodland.

“It’s unusual to have an arable farm of this scale on the market, especially 10 miles from Edinburgh,” said Luke French of Savills. “There’s also a lovely listed house, although it needs some attention, and a terrace of derelict houses that will offer some good development opportunities.”

With the relative lack of availability of farms larger than 500 acres (Smiths Gore research indicates only half a dozen farms of this size are currently being marketed in England), this sale is also expected to generate widespread interest.

(Savills 0131 247 3723)