Sporting Estates for Material Girls (and Boys)
Real Countryside, Winter 2003
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One of Britain’s renowned shooting estates, 450-hectare Ashcombe House, is now in the hands of the Ritchie family, says Robert Liebman.
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Mrs Ritchie, although decidedly neither to the manor nor the manner born, is making up for lost time, taking shooting lessons and otherwise mastering her new brief.
Born in Michigan, USA, Mrs Ritchie is better known by the first of her given names, Madonna Louise Ciccone. Ashcombe House changed hands for a cool £9m. New money is finding its way into old British homes and traditions.
Richard Brooks, an estate agent in the Country House department of Lane Fox, says that “last year's sale of the Ashcombe Estate to Madonna and Guy Ritchie was the most significant to come to the market last year. The really big sporting estate of 800 and more hectares may be dwindling, but perhaps there are more of the smaller estates at between 80 and 120 hectares which have their own shooting or fishing.”
But adding some shooting or fishing to an ordinary farm does not a proper sporting estate make. “A sporting estate should not be restricted only to shooting,” says Mr Brooks. “It should also have stalking, and fishing for salmon and trout. That is why the great sporting estates are in the Borders, Devon, Wiltshire and Yorkshire. That’s where the rivers are. But the really great shooting estates come to the market very rarely.”
This grim lack of supply is echoed by a spokesperson for estate agents Knight Frank, who say that they currently have no truly large sporting estates on their books. However, Ingarsby Estate ten miles east of Leicester, which is on 326 hectares, features a handsome and historic grade II* hall with reception rooms and bedrooms to spare, not to mention a fifteenth-century chapel and numerous outbuildings. The property has 116 hectares of commercial arable and stock farm land with shooting as well as a former carp lake. The estate is associated with the Quorn Hunt. The guide price is £5m.
In Wales, Knight Frank are selling the Edwinsford Estate in Talley, Carmarthenshire, a 149-hectare estate with a bird shoot, sea trout and salmon fishing, and home in the form of a grade II* farmhouse. The grounds contain a further six houses and cottages and historic derelict mansion.
The fishing is on more than four miles of double bank fishing on the River Cothi, with 52 names pools and catches. The woodland is mature, and the estate contains pasture and valley land, with seven miles of service track. Included in the sale are sporting rights on parcels of land adjoining the estate, which add about 128 more hectares. The guide price is £2m.
FPDSavills in Telford are selling Hatton Hall House in Shifnal, Shropshire with fishing and shooting rights, stables, full-sized all weather dressage and an outdoor heated swimming pool. The grounds total only 4 hectares but there are shooting rights on an additional 100 hectares over neighbouring Hatton Hill Farm providing pheasant, partridge and duck shooting. Fishing is available thanks to the fact that Ruckley Brook and Cosford Brook meet on the farm and become the River Worfe, noted for wild trout. The price is £700,000.
Available through the Winchester office of FPDSavills (01962 841842) is Itchen House in Old Bishopstock, Hampshire eight miles from Southampton. The main property is a seven-bedroom Georgian country house with a library, conservatory, gymnasium, morning room. The property includes two restored cottages and, with the River Itchen running through the grounds, enjoys exclusive double banked river frontage in excess of 100 yards. The guide price is £1.3m.
The Lincoln office of FPDSavills are selling Hemplow Farm, a 48 hectare property near Welford, in Northamptonshire with arable and amenity land, including Hemplow Hills. The farm is commercial but its major use recently has been as the Hemplow Farm Shoot. The farm has six separate drives, one of which is the well-known Fish Ponds Drive. It is available as a whole for £295,000 or in three lots.
Carter Jonas is selling Intake Lodge, Yearsley in North Yorkshire 15 miles north of York just west of the Howardian Hills in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The main house is a recently restored five-bedroom stone building in an estate that includes rolling arable and grassland on about 81 hectares with 12 hectares of woodland but no fishing. The guide price is £1.5m.
Threatening legislation clouds the sporting estate horizon. “The recent anti-hunt ruling in Scotland is bound to have repercussions for England,” says Richard Brooks. “Some would-be buyers of sporting estates may be cautious before investing large sums of money in the best part of the country, but amazingly demand is not depressed.”
Further Information
Carter Jonas, Tel: 01904 558200
Knight Frank, Tel: 020 7629 8171
FPDSavills, Lincoln, Tel: 01522 551100; Telford, Tel: 01952 239500;
Winchester, Tel: 01962 841842;
www.robertliebman.com