July auction sales go well

AUCTIONEERS ACROSS the country had some good results for farms sold publicly in July.

In Shropshire, RH & RW Clutton achieved over the guide price for The Newnes, a 245-acre grass farm at Tetchill, near Ellesemere.

In total, the sale, which was split into 12 lots, made £1.62m against a guide of £1.27m.

Although local farmers paid up to £2654/acre for various blocks of pasture, most of the extra value came from developers bidding for a range of traditional buildings with residential development potential.

Tim Raikes auctions The Newnes

This was priced at £350,000 but eventually made £600,000. “We were pleased and more importantly so were our clients,” said the firm’s Christopher Spofforth.

Two blocks of amenity land bordering the Shropshire Union were snapped up by amenity buyers who paid £25,000 and £37,000 for six and five-acre plots respectively.

A Victorian farmhouse failed to make its £350,000 reserve in the room but was sold privately for slightly more after the sale, said Mr Spofforth.

Cumbrian firm Hopes of Wigton attracted farming buyers to two auctions during the month.

Agent Ian Ritchie said he was “over the moon” with the £1.4m sale of Rosewain Farm at Wigton.

The 215-acre stock and arable unit, which included a four-bed house, was bought by a dairy farmer who is planning to switch the farm into milk.

“Personally, I thought it would make somewhere over £1m,” said Mr Ritchie.

Red Flatt Farm at Seaville, near Siloth, fell just short of its £600,000 guide at auction.

But the 110-acre mixed unit is believed to have been bought for just over that when it was withdrawn and sold privately to a farmer and builder from Clitheroe.

Robin Jessop’s eponymous North Yorks firm sold Bank House Farm (below) for £10,000 over its £500,000 guide.

Mr Jessop said the 83-acre farm at Chop Gate on the North Yorks Moors, near Helmsley, would have probably made more if the sporting rights hadn’t belong to the neighbouring estate.

Avenue Farm at Bramley Grange, near Ripon, made £690,000 against a guide of £650,000.

The 41-acre former dairy unit had been bought by a neighbouring businessman who planned to run it as a smallholding, said Mr Jessop.