Large dairy unit a rarity for the area

Wright Manley’s John Lewis will be wielding his gavel again soon when he puts a large dairy farm on the Cheshire/Staffordshire border under the hammer on 6 July.

Bates Farm at Maer, near Newcastle, stretches to almost 450 acres and has a pre-auction guide of £2m.

The sale will be at 7pm at the Crown Hotel in Nantwich and includes a five-bedroom Edwardian house plus just over 1m litres of 4.12% butterfat milk quota.

Mr Lewis said most of the interest in the farm, which is being sold by the trustees of John Cooke, had come from dairy farmers in the UK and Ireland.

“It is rare for a farm this size in this part of the world to come up for sale.

People want to get bigger now, they want a farm that can handle at least 200 to 250 cows.”