Tag: agriculture

Kingly Kinlet
Grand Grade I listed Shropshire mansion Kinlet Hall for sale after coronavirus forced the closure of its wedding venue and summer school
- Striking Grade I listed Palladian mansion in Shropshire for sale.
- Kinlet Hall is priced at £3.5 million or just £104 per square foot.
- The house has until recently been a school and wedding venue, but this usage has been stopped because of the coronavirus lockdown.
- A cricket ground included with the property was lauded as one of “Britain’s most scenic” by ‘The Telegraph’ whilst HRH Princess Anne has competed in horse trials in the parkland.
Coinciding with the partial relaxation of the coronavirus lockdown, the ‘trophy country house’ market seems to be revving up with the commencement of marketing of several historically significant residences.

Now, following on from our feature on Saturday on the £10 million crumbling Jacobean gem Lilford Hall Estate in Northamptonshire, the same agents, Savills, have now introduced the sale of another treasure – the utterly stunning Palladian architectural treasure that is Kinlet Hall in Shropshire.

Significantly cheaper at £3.5 million or £104 per square foot and in far better condition than 33,406 square foot Lilford Hall, the 33,609 square foot Grade I listed Kinlet Hall comes with less land – 102 acres as opposed to 321 acres. It is further from London, which may limit its appeal to wealthy city sorts, but given it has been used as both a school and wedding venue until lockdown, it is in actual “working condition” as opposed to the perilously falling down state that Lilford is sadly currently in. That is, indeed, a major plus.

Featuring a seven-bayed central block of three storeys plus cellars, the hall is flanked by two two-storey wings. Presently configured to provide 5 reception rooms and 15 bedrooms, there are classrooms, gyms and flats also. Surprisingly, unlike with many residential to school conversions of mansions in the 1940s where ugly modern extensions were distastefully tacked on, damage to the integrity of the original structure has been minimal.

In addition, to a 5-bedroom detached house named ‘The Old House’ and a range of farm buildings within the grounds, there is a cricket pavilion and a cricket pitch. The Telegraph named its runner-up for “Britain’s most scenic cricket ground” in 2008 and interestingly amongst the many established plant and tree species in the grounds is a Wellingtonia that allegedly came as a seed in a matchbox from the Americas.

Of Kinlet Hall, Tony Morris-Eyton of Savills comments: “[This is] an exquisitely beautiful Palladian country house, formerly a prep school, awaiting its next chapter with enormous potential as either a private home or [for] other uses.”

The village of Kinlet is situated on the northern edge of the Wyre Forest about 18 miles from Telford and 23 miles from Birmingham.

Design Maestros – Villa Pisani, Montagnana (top left) by Andrea Palladio (lower centre) inspired both Francis Smith of Warwick (lower left) in his designs for Kinlet Hall and William Buckland (lower right) in his creation of the Hammond-Harwood House (top right).

The Names & Numbers – Kinlet Hall, Kinlet, Bewdley, Shropshire, DY12 3AY, United Kingdom

June 2020 – Put up for sale for £3.5 million ($4.4 million, €3.9 million or درهم16.3 million) through agents Savills. Orchard Lodge, a 4-bedroom cottage with an acre of paddock, is available by separate negotiation.

July 2017 – Moffats School closes for the final time citing financial pressures. Of the decision, school chairman Julian Engleheart told the Shropshire Star: “We have always been a small school by choice, maintaining the family ethos of our founders. However, the current financial climate is putting enormous pressure on small schools and we have decided that it would be unwise to commit to a new year this September. However, we will continue to run educational activities in our lovely house and grounds, which provide such a wonderful environment for learning.”

1946 – Moffats School (founded in 1934 by the children’s writer Natalie Engleheart in a Hertfordshire house called Moffats) is relocated to Kinlet Hall.

1939 – 1945 – The house was temporarily home to a school for the blind; the parkland became a camp for the US army as part of their preparations for the Normandy Landings.

1827 – Ballroom added to the designs of Sir Jeffrey Wyattville (1766 – 1840) trained architect Edward Haycock (1790 – 1870) for William Baldwyn Childe. He died three years before it was completed and “this is the only significant part of the house not dating from 1729.”

1727 – 1729 – Kinlet Hall is “built in a classic early Georgian style with the symmetry and grand elevations synonymous with [the English master-builder and architect] Francis Smith of Warwick (1672 – 1738)” for Tory politician William Lacon Childe (1700 – 1757) close to the site of an older Tudor manor house.

Other notable works by Smith and his family include Calke Abbey, Fawsley Hall, Kirtlington House, Ombersley Court and Stoneleigh Abbey. His design was said to be inspired by Andrea Palladio’s (1508 – 1580) Villa Pisani at Montagnana – which also reportedly was the influence for the ‘Anglo-Palladian’ Hammond-Harwood House by the English architect William Buckland (1734 – 1774) in Annapolois, Maryland, USA.

During construction, the old village was removed to “improve” the setting. Only the original church, St. John the Baptist, which contains monuments dating to the 1580s, was left as a “remnant.” It was restored subsequently in 1892.

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June 17, 2020
Moving On – June 2020

Moving on homes owned by the newsworthy – including properties owned by society snapper Sir Cecil Beaton, novelist Jackie Collins and film producer-director Peter Minns.

A Tennis Court Teardown

Paris Hilton’s dad Rick’s realty firm Hilton & Hyland has just launched to the market the former Beverly Hills home of the late Jackie Collins OBE (1937 – 2015) for £13.4 million ($16.95 million). They don’t say much about the bonkbuster author’s residence of some 25 years other than: “Secluded behind gates and foliage lies a great opportunity to purchase a tennis court… Home could use a remodel or rebuild.” Miss Collins and her second husband art gallery owner Oscar Lerman paid £2.4 million ($3 million) for 5,269 square foot 614 N Beverly Drive in 1991.

Limited Living in the ‘Hampshire Highlands’

https://vimeo.com/358107497/b6629a2217

Reduced in price from £4 million ($5.1 million) in September 2019 to £3.73 million ($4.72 million) now through agents BCM, The Oast House at Hartley Mauditt in the South Downs National Park in Hampshire was converted by film producer-director Peter Minns in the 1990s.

This delightful ‘mini estate’ looks like something that could have been in of The Darling Buds of May and comes with 76.28 acres of land suitable for ‘stick and ball’ polo, but the problem is this – a planning stipulation dictates that the majority of the main house is only allowed to be on a “short-term” basis whilst two cottages are for “holiday or seasonal worker use” and a bungalow is limited to “anyone fully employed in agriculture.”

Minns is best known for having produced programmes including Mad Cows & Englishmen for the BBC, A Question of Sleaze – The Neil Hamilton Story for Channel 4 and Citizen 2000 – which followed the lives of twenty children who became 18 in the year 2000.

Moving on Sir Cecil’s Seat

£4 million ($5.1 million) is sought for Queen Anne Reddish House in the Chalke Valley in Wiltshire by agents Savills. Society snapper Sir Cecil Beaton CBE, owner from 1947 until his death in 1980, described it as: “My dream home” and an “exquisite country seat” and between 1987 and 1999, it was home to the I Want to Be Free singer Toyah Wilcox. Aside from 6 acres of glorious gardens, the Grade II* listed house comes with two cottages, a range of follies and a water meadow. Locked-down Instagrammers have been moving all over its marketing brochure and sharing photos online, with one even gushing: “It’s the prettiest house I’ve seen EVER… EVER.”

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June 12, 2020
Come Enjoy!

Quaint Edwardian cottage with 22 acres of land in Wellington, Maine for sale for the same price as a brand new Land Rover Discovery

Named for Arthur Wellesley, 1^st Duke of Wellington, the town of Wellington in Piscataquis County, Maine is pretty small. With a population of just 260 in 2010 across 39.93 square miles, this is a place where “there are really are more cows than people.”

Known for an over-the-top annual Christmas light display that “brings tears of joy to the eyes” (supposedly) courtesy of a woodsman named Blaine Henderson, someone with just £48,300 ($59,900, €54,900 or درهم220,000) spare could now join this typically apple pie American, Hicksville community and become what locals call a “Mainiac.”

Counting the actress Liv Tyler and the author Stephen King amongst those born there, the state of Maine is best known for agriculture, fishing and shipbuilding and has a humid continental climate. It is the northern-most state in the north-east of America and for those “yearning for a home with acreage,” an Edwardian cottage at 14 Smith Hill Road could make for an ideal holiday home.

Standing on a plot of 21.58 acres, the 640 square foot cedar shingle clad house has been “updated” (to a degree) and has one bedroom and one bathroom currently. There is “lots of potential for expansion” and of the smallholding, realtors Berkshire Hathaway announce: “Come enjoy!”

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May 10, 2020
Stunning Stonewall

Co-founder of Calvin Klein Inc. puts his 740 acre equestrian estate just an hour from New York up for sale for £81 million; about 65 stake winners and several horses that have competed at the Kentucky Derby have been produced there

“Murdered grocer’s son from the Bronx” Barry K. Schwartz and his childhood friend Calvin Klein co-founded the now world-famous fashion brand Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968 and sold it for £589 million in 2003.

Barry K. Schwartz with Calvin Klein.

Barry K. and Sheryl Schwartz.

Aside from spending his ever-growing fortune on horses – one of which he named ‘Degenerate Jon’ (after his son) and another ‘Killer Diller’ (after his friend the media mogul Barry Diller) – Schwartz and his wife, Sheryl, purchased 673 acres of land to the north of New York City in Westchester County in 1979 for the back then far from insubstantial sum then of £2.6 million.

There, not that far from Belmont Park racetrack in the small residential hamlet of Granite Springs, after adding yet more land to take their “equestrian estate” to a grand total of 18 deeded parcels on 740 contiguous acres, the couple created a world-class equestrian establishment that they filled with thoroughbred racehorses. Facilities at ‘Stonewall Farm’ – as it is now known – have evolved to include a turf racetrack, riding trails, a 40-stall yearling barn, two 24-stall broodmare barns, round pens and 4board fenced paddocks and pastures with run-in sheds.

A year after cashing in alongside Klein, stamp collector Schwartz’s new home was completed on the property. It features 24,000 square foot of accommodation, 8 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. There is a 2,200-bottle wine cellar, a pub, a two-storey library “that would delight any reader” and living spaces that “invites elegant entertaining, whether intimate or on a grand scale,” according to selling agents Christie’s International Real Estate.

Elsewhere in the grounds, there are 8 staff residences (to house the 30 employees that currently maintain the estate), a guest house and a caretaker’s house. Formal gardens, designed by Edmund D. Hollander in geometric French and Japanese styles, adjoin the house and there is a 60-foot long swimming pool within a 4,000 square foot pavilion also.

Stonewall Farm is situated just one hour from Manhattan, but now that Mr and Mrs Schwartz are spending more time at another of their homes in Santa Barbara, California, they have decided to sell. Of it, realtor Kathleen Coumou told The Journal News:

“It’s on one of the largest pieces of property that one can purchase in the county. It was so convenient for [the Schwartzes] to be on this farm, with all its privacy, and still be close to New York… [It’s] magnificently laid out, with a southern-looking main house and behind it, it’s like you’re in Kentucky. You see the pastures with the horses and lots of woodlands. It’s quite spread out – it feels like you’re somewhere else, not in Westchester County… You have gorgeous views – hills and ponds and horses and paddocks, and different levels of rolling hills… You certainly can’t see anybody else around.”

“[Stonewall Farm will be sold to] a billionaire, who could come from anywhere.”

The Names & Numbers – Stonewall Farm, Mahopac Avenue, Granite Springs, Westchester County, New York, NY 10527, United States of America

April 2020 – For sale for £80.7 million ($100 million, €92.1 million or درهم368 million) through Christie’s International Real Estate. Of why, they chose this sum, realtor Kathleen Coumou told The Journal News: “We did a very thorough appraisal of the property – the land and all of the buildings – and came up with a price of $110 million, and then we decided to round it down to $100 million.”

June 2005 – The house is featured in Architectural Digest.

1999 to 2004 – Construction of main house, a “colonial-style manor” with a “white clapboard facade and a slate roof repurposed from the Yale Divinity School,” was completed to the designs of the New York architect Rebecca Rasmussen with an interior by the London based interior designer Kelly Hoppen.

2003 – Calvin Klein and Barry K. Schwartz sell their company to Philips-Van Heusen (now known as PVH Corp.) for £589 million ($730 million, €672 million or درهم2.7 billion).

1979 – Barry K. and Sheryl Schwartz pay £2.6 million ($3.25 million, €3 million or درهم11.9 million) for 673 acres of land. Of buying it, Mr Schwartz later commented: “”It was the easiest negotiation of my life. The seller asked $3.5 million, I offered $3 million and we settled on $3.25 million.” The couple purchased further land shortly thereafter.

1968 – Calvin Klein (born 19^th November 1942) co-founds Calvin Klein Inc. with his childhood friend Barry K. Schwartz (born 25^th May 1942) with a loan of £8,100 ($10,000, €9,200 or درهم36,700).

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April 8, 2020
Dumb Daniel

Matthew Steeples calls out Daniel Hannan for ludicrously not wanting to encourage British people to consume locally produced food

Daniel Hannan claims to support localism. He wants to end Value Added Tax and replace it with a local sales tax, set by local councils. The ex-MEP is also obsessed with national sovereignty and whilst often bizarrely banging on about trading with Ethiopia also, today basically said he wishes to discourage British farmers to produce more on their own land.

Arch-Brexiteer Daniel Hannan has been mocked recently for his ludicrous analysis of how coronavirus will change our lives. In a column for ‘The Telegraph’ he bizarrely announced: “If coronavirus has one silver lining it should be the return of the bow and curtsy”. He elaborated: “A handshake can be an awkward thing – a clumsy, clammy grapple. But a woman breathes something of herself into her curtsy. She can make the gesture demure or haughty, coy or brazen… She can swish her skirts alluringly or bob coldly. The same is true, mutatis mutandis, for men. A bow allows you to convey precisely the degree of respect or affection you consider appropriate.”

Yesterday, at a local pub, I was able to fill this empty 750ml gin bottle with locally produced beer for just £2. Daniel Hannan: “What’s wrong with that?”

In an article for The Telegraph, this fan of Enoch Powell claimed “COVID-19 is pushing us to protectionism” and added that: “The idea that growing your own food makes you more secure sounds plausible, but turns out to be nonsense… If you think about it, national food self-sufficiency makes no more sense than village food self-sufficiency.”

Whilst rightly Hannan admits “we have one of the most innovative agri-food sectors on the planet,” wrongly he doesn’t want to encourage it. Here, in my self-imposed isolation in East Anglia, I’ve seen exactly to the contrary. Walking in the local countryside, I pass farms with roadside stalls. They sell locally produced eggs, locally produced fruit and veg and even offer locally grown flowers as well. The village pub – turned into a community shop due to it being unable to sell booze in its normal manner – now sells locally produced pies and locally made ale even (at a most reasonable just £2 to fill a bring-your-own bottle) to takeaway and frankly, it’s all for the good. People are eating more healthily here now and surprisingly these goods are being sold at a lower cost than they’re retailed for by the greedy middlemen – AKA the supermarkets – in normal times.

Growing local is good for the local economy and buying local is even better. Supporting your local food and drink producers is a jolly good thing and Daniel Hannan is dumb to say otherwise.

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April 5, 2020
A Perfect Estate

Diverse 2,000 acre Suffolk riverside estate for sale for £31.5 million; it has been owned by the same family since the 19^th century and produces an income of some £500,000 per year

A vast Suffolk estate – just 120 miles from London – has gone on sale for £31.5 million ($40.1 million, €35.3 million or درهم147.4 million) either as a whole or in upto 21 lots through agents Knight Frank.

Owned by Sir Guy and Lady Quilter and originally part of a larger 8,000 acre property, the 2,177 acre Sutton Hall Estate, near Woodbridge has been in the same family since the early 1900s. It has 3½ miles of frontage to the River Deben and is divided between 1,432 acres of irrigable arable land served by two large reservoirs, 375 acres of mature woodland and 242 acres of grazing and parkland.

Centred around a 6,084 square foot Grade II listed Georgian house with eight bedrooms, the estate also comes with eleven further farmhouses and cottages, numerous outbuildings, a keepered sporting shoot and a private quay.

Crops grown on the property include wheat, winter barley, potatoes, sugar beat, rape, vining peas, carrots, parsnips and onions whilst the selling agents comment: “For those looking to create an even more diversified business, the environmental and agricultural opportunities are boundless.”

In remarks to Knight Frank’s 2018 Rural Report, Sir Guy Quilter recently stated:

“We feel very lucky to have had the opportunity and I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved, but it feels like we’ve done as much as we’re comfortable doing without changing the nature of the estate.”

“You have to feel completely comfortable running a place like this because you can get it wrong very easily. History is littered with estates that have turned to dust within a generation.”

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August 14, 2018
A Modern Beauty

“One of Britain’s finest 20th-century country houses” has been placed for sale for £20 million; it comes with 530 acres and was built by the late businessman Sebastian de Ferranti in the 1980s

One could imagine being in the early 18^th century or in Italy even on first taking a look at the Palladian style Henbury Hall, near Macclesfield in Cheshire. However, as Moliere said: “One is easily fooled by that one loves” and in reality this 12,496 square foot beauty was actually constructed between 1980 and 1986.

The vision of the buccaneer businessman and patron of the arts Sebastian de Ferranti (1927 – 2015) and based upon Palladio’s Villa Rotunda at Vizenza, the 6-bedroomed main residence stands on the site of an earlier mansion demolished in the 1950s. It was designed by the architect Julian Bicknell in conjunction with Felix Kelly and David Mlinaric, was constructed by Tarmac Construction and is faced with warm-toned limestone from north east France. The estate also includes a Grade II listed dower house, five further houses and cottages, a Grade II listed and stable block and courtyard.

The late Sebastian de Ferranti

Henbury Hall during construction

A depiction of the original Henbury Hall in 1707

The front elevation of the current Henbury Hall with parkland beyond

Aside from 12 acres of immaculate gardens with a series of lakes, there is a 200 year old landscaped park, woodland, agricultural land, a beautifully designed swimming pool, a tennis court and a polo field.

Selling agents Savills offer the Henbury Hall Estate as a whole for a guide price of £20 million – a world away from the £9,000 sum the estate sold for in 1872 (the equivalent of £934,000 today).

November 11, 2017
A Silo in SoHo

Penthouse in SoHo, New York for sale for 48% more than it was marketed for in 2007; it comes come complete with structures resembling a barn and a silo on its roof

This week the popular New York real estate blog 6sqft reported that a 1,250 square foot condo loft had gone on sale for £2.018 million ($2.649 million, €2.282 million or درهم9.726 million). What makes it unusual is that it comes with structures resembling a silo and a barn on its roof deck.

Described as being “in need of updating” but featuring ceiling heights of upto 20-foot, the propery includes living and dining spaces along with an open plan “sleeping nook”, walk-in closet, an office area and a bathroom on one of its two levels. Above, one finds an 800 square foot outdoor space with a built-in bar and pergola. The apartment was previously offered for sale in 2007 for £1.367 million ($1.795 million, €1.546 million or درهم6.590 million).

The penthouse at 118 Wooster Street is within a 6-storey, 13 unit building and is offered to the market by City Realty. Of it, the firm comments: “You won’t be able to duplicate this unit anywhere in Manhattan. This quiet space can be configured to your exact needs [and the roof deck offers] potential for a second-level addition.”

October 29, 2017
Stopping Brexit

Matthew Steeples suggests Labour’s partial U-turn on Brexit is a positive start; they must now go further and oppose it entirely

Whilst Keir Starmer’s decision to announce Labour will support Britain remaining in a customs union with the EU and within the single market during a “time-limited transitional period between our exit from the EU and the new lasting relationship we build with our European partners” in The Observer yesterday is to be saluted, he does not go far enough.

Brexit has left Britain on a knife-edge. Sterling is considerably weakened, jobs in agriculture and banking are already disappearing and businesses, such as occurred with Southern Salads in Kent, are beginning to go into administration. Theresa May’s “Brexit means Brexit” and her ridiculous “red, white and blue Brexit” now seem the ultimate follies and this morning’s comment by Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail is indicative that the lunatics are still in charge of the asylum.

In a moaning rant that he titles a “spectacular betrayal of Labour voters” and aside from spouting the usual rhetoric, Oborne does rightly suggest that Jeremy Corbyn is not a natural supporter of the EU. The Labour leader, after all, voted against British membership in 1975, opposed the single market subsequently and also did little in the 2016 referendum campaign to positively support ‘remain’. Consequently, one is left wondering if he actually truly supports what Keir Starmer yesterday proposed.

The Leader of the Opposition’s aim, of course, is power and alongside his recent transformation from a badly dressed joker to someone who actually made headway – thanks in the main to Theresa May’s incompetence and decision to call an utterly unnecessary election – Corbyn has realised that the 48% are a constituency worthy of pursuing. He must now, himself, come out and be honest with us and we urge him to do what is best for Britain: It is time for Labour campaign to stop Brexit.

Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

August 28, 2017
An Epic Estate

Scottish sporting estate, once home to Sir Walter Scott, for sale; it comes with nearly two miles of fishing on the River Tweed, 863 acres of land and seven houses

The Scottish estate where Sir Walter Scott, Bt. (1771 – 1732) wrote his narrative poems Lay of the Minstrel and The Lady of the Lake and his epic, Marmion, has recently been placed for sale for £5.5 million ($7.1 million, €6.4 million or درهم26.2 million).

Offered by Savills and leased by the novelist, playwright and poet from 1804 to 1812, Ashiestiel House in Selkirkshire stands above in 863 acres above the River Tweed and is 35 miles from the centre of Edinburgh. It comes with six further dwellings, 1¾ miles of salmon and sea trout fishing on the River Tweed, an in-hand stock farm, commercial forestry, a pheasant shooting, duck flighting and equestrian facilities.

Sir Walter Scott, Bt. (1771 – 1732) was the tenant of Ashiestiel for eight years prior to moving to Abbotsford, an estate he eventually expanded to some 1,000 acres

An Epic Estate – Ashiestiel, Clovenfords, Lauderdale, Selkirkshire, Scotland, TD1 3LJ, United Kingdom

Extending to 10,360 square foot and renovated in 2011, the estate’s Grade A listed main residence includes 5 reception rooms, 9 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. It dates to the 17^th century and amongst its features are a peel tower and space described as suitable for entertaining “on a grand scale”.

Ashiestiel was last placed on the market – with just 24 acres of land and its two gate lodges – for £1.75 million in 2009 (the equivalent of £2.15 million, $2.79 million, €2.48 million or درهم10.26 million today). At the time, then owner and joint master of the Buccleuch hunt, Robert Claydon, told The Telegraph:

“I’ve come back from cubbing and caught a salmon at the end of the garden. It’s very wild countryside – south of us you won’t hit a road for 10 miles. It was the best move we ever made coming here. We escaped the rat race – people understand the countryside up here”.

May 25, 2017