Crown sale benefits from Eastern land price increase

The Crown Estate is set to benefit from the East of Englan’s climbing land prices as it sells off more land.
Carter Jonas is selling four farms near Sleaford that are part of The Crown’s Ewerby Estate. The Crown sold another 2000 acres of the estate without historic single farm payments for £4.5m (about £2000/acre for the land) in 2005.
Agent Iain Nott said the holdings, which are based around South Kyme and include two period houses, totalled 1388 acres and were close enough to be run as one unit.
“The farm in the middle has a good set of buildings that could be expanded to form the heart of a business.”
Mr Nott said the Grade 2 soil was worth about £3000/acre including the SFP. The guide for the entire estate is £5.58m.
Unusually, livestock farmers are also catered for in Lincolnshire this week as one of the UK’s largest cattle finishers sells up.
Brown & Co’s Ken Pritchard is handling the sale of Winghale Priory Farm at South Kelsey, near Market Rasen, on behalf of Tom King, who fattened 5000 cattle on the 373-acre unit last year. Mr King will continue to finish cattle but is looking for a new farm to develop.
Mr Pritchard said the farm, which comes with a six-bed house, could accommodate 2000 cattle at one time and he expected the quality of the buildings to attract another livestock producer, possibly from Ireland.
However, all the land could go under the plough if an arable farmer was interested, he added.
SFP is not included in the £2m price, but Mr Pritchard said his firm had a enough entitlements for the farm if the purchaser needed to buy some.
In Essex, Savills‘ Nicola Duncan-Anderson is selling two residential farms.
Netherhouse Farm at Sewardstone, near Chingford, comes with a five-bed period house, 190 acres of land and a £3m price tag, while 260-acre East Newlands at St Lawrence, near Southminster, has a four-bed house, bungalow and 900t of grain storage. It is guided at £2.32m.