A huge swathe of fertile farmland in the Fens, worth almost £50m, is up for sale after two significant estates hit the market.
The twin sales of the Coldham Estate, near Wisbech, and Cold Harbour Farm at Littleport, near Ely, offered a "very rare" opportunity for farmers and investors, said agents.
The 4,179-acre Coldham Estate is being sold with a guide price of £43.5m after the owner, property developer Urban&Civic, decided it fell "outside the parameters" of its "core strategy for land ownership".
Sales agents said most of the farmland is classed Grade 1, and there has been "significant investment" in infrastructure including 8,300 tonnes of grain storage and two reservoirs.
The residential portfolio includes the nine-bedroom Coldham Hall, and the estate also has two windfarms with 14 turbines, and has agreed terms for the construction of a 43-acre solar farm.
Meanwhile the smaller Cold Harbour Farm has a guide price of £6.4m for its 497 acres of "first class" irrigated arable land, bungalow, farm buildings and stores.
Agents said the land has been "exceptionally well farmed and sympathetically cropped" by farmer Peter Rains.
Christopher Miles, who leads Savills' rural agency team in the East of England, said it was "very rare" for so much top-quality land to become available in the Fens at the same time.
"It is an unusual coincidence, and these two sales are for completely different reasons," he said.
"Urban&Civic has taken over the Wellcome Trust property portfolio and they are focused on strategic and development properties, but the Coldham Estate is an out-an-out agricultural investment. Cold Harbour Farm is owned by Peter Rains, and the sale is purely for retirement reasons.
"Cold Harbour will appeal to both local farmers and outside investors and we have a number of people looking at it from outside the area, looking to expand - it is not easy to get farms of this quality.
"It is the same for the Coldham Estate, but it is a much bigger fish, so it will appeal to the bigger farming companies, as well as investors.
"Coldham has got the renewables too, and that is definitely an alternative income stream that buyers like, and not just in the UK - we have seen quite a bit of interest from overseas too."
While the sale of Cold Harbour Farm is being handled by Savills' Norwich office, the Coldham Estate sale is being handled jointly by Savills' national farm team, along with joint selling agents Bidwells.
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