Bedfordshire portfolio offers buyers choice

A decent-sized portfolio of agricultural property and land in Bedfordshire is being launched this week by agent Knight Frank.

Hollow Farm and land at Cranfield together run to just over 329 acres of arable, pasture and amenity land and are offered with two farmhouses and traditional and modern farm buildings.

The sale is by informal tender as a whole or in up to 11 lots.

Hollow Farm and its associated lots are located a few miles north of Bedford near Milton Ernest. Lot 1 consists of a four-bedroom farmhouse with an adjoining one-bedroom annexed flat and office and a three-bedroom annexe attached to the other side. There are no agricultural ties to any of the properties.

Adjacent is a courtyard of traditional farm buildings. The farm also has a modern, 20,000sq ft barn with central feed passage and there are four grain silos.

About 98 acres of ring-fenced land is also included in Lot 1, made up almost entirely of Hanslope soil series (calcareous clay). It is mainly down to arable cropping with about 22 acres of permanent pasture.

The remaining 95 acres, also a mix of arable and grass, are off-lying and divided into seven lots. Three of these are adjoining and amount to about 55 acres, and the rest are mainly individual fields. The land includes some well-drained fine loamy soils as well as further Hanslope series soils.

Lots 9-11 are at Cranfield, about 10 miles south west of Bedford. Moat Farm is a four-bedroom farmhouse let on an assured shorthold tenancy with adjacent barn. It comes with 60 acres of grass, which has potential for long-term residential development.

A further 77 acres makes up the final two lots.

Guide prices vary from £1.78m for Lot 1 to £40,000 for the smallest lot of 3.17 acres. Guide values for remaining bare land range from £7,000-9,000/acre.

Agent Tom Raynham is expecting prices to exceed those guides. “Given the interest we’re seeing from neighbouring landowners and amenity users, I think we will see some good competition,” he said.

The deadline for submission of tenders is midday, 6 September 2013. (Knight Frank 020 7629 8171)