A Norfolk farm with a seven bedroom house owned by the same family since the 1930s is for sale.
Hall Farm, Sco Ruston, near North Walsham, is being sold with the handsome Georgian fronted Sco Ruston Hall at its core, outbuildings and 500 acres of prime agricultural land.
The property and land, for sale with Arnolds Keys, comes as a whole or in five lots with the house, outbuildings and 10 acres of land in one lot for a guide of £1.2m and the rest of the land split into four more lots.
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This gives the opportunity of selling some land to neighbours, said Simon Evans, Arnolds Keys’ agricultural partner who is handling the sale.
It will be the first time the Sco Ruston farm comes up for sale since being taken over by the Alston family in the 1930s, who moved to Norfolk from Ayrshire.
The sale is as a result of Jane Alston, the widow of farmer Gavin Alston, retiring to a smaller residence nearby. Mr Alston was part of the renowned farming family in Norfolk. The farm is in the ownership of Mrs Alston’s three daughters, who are not in the farming industry and decided to sell.
The farm gives someone the opportunity to develop the outbuildings, some which are traditional uncoverted barns, and some more modern in structure, subject to planning permission.
The house, with seven bedrooms, needs some cosmetic improvement and the land, farmed by contractors for Sco Ruston Farms Limited, is prime agricultural land with an irrigation licence and currently used for growing cereals, sugar beet and potatoes as well as vegetables such as peas and beans and also oil seed rape.
But Mr Evans did not rule out the possibility that some of the land, close to Tunstead, could be developed on in the future. However, it currently offered a fabulous opportunity for either a farming family looking to relocate to Norfolk or for various people living close by to have the chance of buying some of the land up, he said.
The sale follows a similar one last year when Elizabeth Purdy’s family put up for sale Green Farm at Paston for the first time since 1823. That sale, which did not include a house, and more than 450 acres, was valued at £4.5m.
Mr Evans added: “Farms like this don’t come on the market very often because it’s only when they pass to non farming family members that they need to be split up equally.
“There are still some agricultural families out there intending to set up a farm in their own right, perhaps because of capital gains, they want to relocate, other people want to add something to their existing unit and there is the opportunity for the neighbours to buy something to add to their property.
“There are substantial changes due to farming, they are losing their basic payment and farmers are under pressure to look at opportunities to diversify faming. But critically, people need to understand that to make money from farming you have got to buy good land which is what this is.”
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