Magical landscapes

There’s shooting, stalking, fishing, farming and houses aplenty within the golden acres of two of this country’s finest agricultural estates

- Penny Churchill

AGAINST the backdrop of a record-breaking low supply of farmland for sale throughout the UK earlier in the year, the recent launch onto the market of two of England’s most prestigious farming estates —the 1,306-acre Beckerings Park estate in Bedfordshire and the 1,011-acre Roundtown estate in Hampshire—continues to attract interest from farmers and investors alike.

‘With farming at a crossroads in the UK as the Basic Payments Scheme is gradually replaced by one of three Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS), whereby farmers will be paid to manage their land in an environmentally sustainable way, large, high-quality farms offering economies of scale or opportunities for diversification are currently the most desirable,’ says Matthew Sudlow of Strutt & Parker (01865 366660), who is handling the sale of Beckerings Park at a guide price of £17 million for the whole.

Unlike most of England’s great landed estates, Beckerings Park, near Ampthill, was never a manor, but a sizeable tract of land that can trace its origins to the early 14th century, when it was granted by the de Greys, later Earls of Kent, to John de Bekering, but later returned to the Grey family, descending with their Bedfordshire manor before passing to the Crown.