Latest news with #Strutt&Parker
The Herald Scotland
25-07-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Holiday home business on banks of Scottish loch for sale
Agent Strutt and Parker is marketing Sealladh an Loch, a contemporary Highland property set close to Loch Ness, currently run as a successful five-star holiday rental. The agent said that, with its established holiday rental business, the house offers potential as either a home or income-generating property, 'in a quiet location close to Fort Augustus'. Inside and out. (Image: Strutt & Parker) The agent said: 'The home has excellent eco credentials, benefitting from efficient triple-glazing and a ground-source heat pump. 'The impressive 27-foot central reception hall with dual wooden turned staircase benefits from a cloakroom, polished stone flooring and glazed double doors that flow out onto the decked terrace.' READ MORE: The agent also said: 'Nestled among dramatic forests and mountain ranges, the property's generous wrap-around private plot is approached over a sweeping driveway. 'There is a raised decked terrace and a paved patio for dining al fresco, with a pathway meandering up to a viewing point with a panoramic outlook of the mountains towards Loch Ness. 'Large enclosed grassed gardens follow, with a wildflower meadow to the rear of the home, a variety of trees and shrubs and a timber outbuilding complete with a log store.' The agent said: 'The property is set in an idyllic rural position close to the iconic Loch Ness, which offers a plethora of hiking, cycling, riding, fishing, swimming and kayaking opportunities.' The village of Foyers offers a range of amenities, including a local shop, Post Office, café and a popular public house. Nearby Fort Augustus also offers additional services, the agent said. Offers over £675,000 are invited.
Scottish Sun
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
I bought Ian Fleming's incredible UK beach home for under £1million – now I'm selling up because it's ‘too small'
Owner spotted it while swimming the Channel NEVER STAY NEVER I bought Ian Fleming's incredible UK beach home for under £1million – now I'm selling up because it's 'too small' Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A JAMES Bond superfan who snapped up Ian Fleming's former seaside home for less than £1million is putting it back on the market – because he says it's no longer big enough for his family. Mermaid Cottage, the striking 1920s Art Deco house in St Margaret's Bay, Kent, was once owned by both Bond creator Ian Fleming and legendary playwright Noel Coward. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 7 It's now up for sale with a guide price of £1.75million Credit: Getty 7 Its villain, Hugo Drax, constructs his deadly Moonraker rocket just outside Dover near Deal Credit: Strutt & Parker 7 It remained in private hands until 2008, when current owner Mark Sawyer spotted it during a visit to Kent with his then-partner Credit: Strutt & Parker It's now up for sale with a guide price of £1.75million. Fleming is believed to have written part of Moonraker at the property between 1951 and 1957, taking inspiration from the surrounding cliffs and coastline for the novel's dramatic setting. Its villain, Hugo Drax, constructs his deadly Moonraker rocket just outside Dover, near Deal. Coward had owned the house previously and renamed it 'White Cliffs' after restoring it following wartime damage by British and Canadian troops preparing for D-Day. He spent around £2,000 reinforcing the chalk cliffs and reportedly found his love of painting during his years there, according to Dover Museum. The house passed to Fleming in 1951, becoming his weekend and holiday escape. It remained in private hands until 2008, when current owner Mark Sawyer spotted it during a visit to Kent with his then-partner. The 56-year-old, who works in private equity, first glimpsed the village while swimming the Channel in a team relay: 'I distinctly remember the captain of the boat saying, 'There's St Margarets, it's a really pretty village'. I saw it from the water for the first time.' Although the house wasn't officially on the market, the couple fell in love with it and persuaded the estate agent to take it off the books immediately with a £20,000 deposit. They bought it for £800,000 and have since spent around £1million on renovations, including buying land to extend the garden. James Bond expert drops huge hint about new 007 actor after he starred in movie with huge A-list actress 'I'm a massive Bond fan. For me that was the cherry on the cake,' Sawyer said. 'Most people say when we're down there: squint and you could be in the Mediterranean,' he added. 'In the winter, the bay is so much quieter. "You sit there with the log-burning stove roaring with a storm blowing outside. 7 A JAMES Bond superfan who snapped up Ian Fleming's former seaside home for less than £1million Credit: Rex "You're immersed in nature. 7 After nearly two decades in Mermaid Cottage, Mark Sawyer is selling his Bond-worthy home "The only land you can see from our living room is France.' His partner Lara Jewitt, a Chelsea Flower Show gold medallist, helped design the garden, which echoes the style of Derek Jarman's Prospect Cottage. The couple bought land from the council in 2014 to create it, but soon ran out of space. 'We developed every square inch down there, and we just wanted a bit more room,' Sawyer said. 'I never thought I would sell it, to be honest with you. It has three bedrooms, and that is too small to have both of my children back, potentially in the future with their partners, and my family to stay.' Not everyone is pleased about the decision. 'My daughter is still not talking to me since I told her I am selling it,' he admitted. 'She'll get over it eventually.' Strutt & Parker, who are handling the sale, describe Mermaid Cottage as a 'breathtaking location' with a 'rich history of famous connections.' 7 They bought it for £800,000 and have since spent around £1million on renovations, including buying land to extend the garden Credit: Strutt & Parker
New Statesman
19-07-2025
- Business
- New Statesman
Britain's farmers will take Starmer down with them
Photo by Oli Scarff/AFP The cows step forward gingerly at first, padding out from their tunnel and looking around expectantly. Once they emerge, the auctioneer spits out numbers. The farmers watching from the concrete amphitheatre above are impassive. They bid with such subtle nods that I struggle to tell who had bought which animal. But they are well-used to it all. The farmers of Thame have been doing this since the 12th century. Then, the livestock were traded on the high street of this handsome Oxford town. The market, owned by a cooperative of local farmers, was built in 1951. This culture has survived nearly 1000 years but may not, if you speak to the people here, survive another ten. Market and meteorological pressures have long made farming difficult. The market itself has only narrowly survived bids to buy its increasingly valuable land and turn it into a supermarket. But now, farmers are angry about a hostile government and political elite that they feel are deliberately accelerating the end of their profession, for the sake of political capital. One Buckinghamshire farming leader told me Keir Starmer would be brave to show his face in any rural pub in Britain. Watching the auction is John Mayer. He is 85 years old and the movement of his legs is severely restricted. He reached his seat in the amphitheatre's third row only by leaning forward at an impossible angle and swinging his body up, step by step. He is thankful he has a son to take over his farm. As creamy white Charolais cows mooed past through the pen, John tells me wistfully about a childhood spent on his father's tenant farm. As soon as they were able, he and his brother began hedge cutting in order to save up to buy their own land. Now, they have 930 acres. John has travelled to Australia, Sweden and America to research handling setups. He grows wildflowers, lets his hedges sprout and has never shot a badger. But, Mayer says, he would not encourage a young person to go into agriculture now. Farms cannot survive financially. 'There are good people who've been in farming for generations. We're losing those sort of people,' he says. 'If my farm came up for sale, people from the City would buy it to avoid tax.' According to the estate agents Strutt & Parker, more than half the English farmland sold in 2023 was bought by non-farmers. Last autumn, the government announced plans to raise money from such purchases by reducing inheritance tax relief on agricultural property. But farmers were apoplectic. Generally, the value of their land has risen with no corresponding rise in their incomes, which remain low. Without the relief, they could not afford their death duties, so would be unable to pass their farms to their children. Some reportedly confronted Keir Starmer about this at a pub near Chequers, just a 20-minute drive from the market. At the margins of the auction, farmers gather in a whitewashed room with a roof of corrugated iron to exchange gossip and talk shop. Discussing the state of the industry, they share a litany of woes. 'We're getting extremes of weather,' says Bill Walding, who raises cattle and sheep near Luton. 'One year we've got a soaking wet February where everything's under water. And the next year, we've got a very dry February and it's a very wet May.' While high beef prices had been a rare bright spot, they are now slumping again, he says. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Approaching 60 and preparing for Labour's inheritance tax changes, Walding ought to be thinking of estate planning. Older landowners he knows are terrified. 'It's literally a death sentence to some of them. You can either live or you can give your farm to your family.' Beneath the political rage is a deep, existential fear. Farmers see the way they live their lives, and the way their ancestors lived their lives, slipping away. And they have little hope that their traditions will be preserved for their future generations. They believe they are hated by the political class and misunderstood by the metropole. Farms are being consolidated in the countryside, while new build developments push in from the suburbs. 'They're being squeezed from both directions,' the cattle market's auctioneer, Simon Draper, told me. Thanks to higher costs in southern England, Mayer and Walding say, it is impossible to make a living on anything less than 600 acres of land anywhere south of Leicester. 'In the Farmers Weekly five years ago you would have seen farms up to 100 acres up for sale,' says John. 'They're all gone now and the farms which are coming up for sale now are the 200-300 acre farms, which are non-profitable to farm. That is the next scenario we're coming into – the little farms are gone. They cannot earn money.' Walding has built himself a way out, but one it would hurt him to use. Over the past 25 years he has quadrupled the size of his yard and prepared it for conversion into an industrial estate. 'I do not want to be the man to do it but that is the fallback position for the family,' he says glumly. As I stand up to leave, he tells me he thinks the recovery of British farming can survive but it will require the public to go hungry. Only then will they realise its importance. At a farm of a very different scale, at a smallholding on the edge of Exmoor, Baroness Mallalieu is trying to sell some sheep. The Labour peer has lived on in the area for 25 years. She says the inheritance tax changes have imposed an economic stasis. 'They're not investing in their businesses because why should they if it's going to be taken from them,' she says as we sit underneath a vast painting of the death of Nelson in a House of Lords lobby. 'They're not taking on more people. The damp that's been put on growth, it's the exact opposite of what's wanted.' Mallalieu, the president of the Countryside Alliance for the last 26 years and a lifelong Labour supporter, is well-placed to understand the gulf opening between Starmer and rural voters. She believes Labour politicians have been led astray by their urban milieu and a belief that all farmers are class enemies. 'I'm just met everywhere by people saying to me, and the same phrase has come up a number of times, 'why do they hate us?' And that is the picture they've got from what's happened. It's not just on inheritance tax, it's a whole range of things.' Still, the baroness remains convinced that many in the countryside are natural supporters of her party. 'They're people who should be Labour voters because they're people with very little money, very low income, a portfolio of little jobs like cleaning holiday cottages or agricultural work or mucking out horses.' She sees a similarity between this moment and the furious protests against Tony Blair's move to ban fox hunting. class enemies. Mallalieu recently heard Steve Reed, the secretary of state for Defra, telling the party's rural MPs to inform their constituents to expect the government to follow through on a manifesto commitment to ban trail hunting. 'I think they've gone into a bunker now on the countryside,' she says. 'I think they're just saying, 'Keep the defences up and carry on.' They've got so many other problems.' With 59 of its 100 most marginal constituencies in rural or semi-rural areas, the government can ill afford a revolt. In the run up to May's local elections, though, the man who helps with Mallalieu's sheep told her he was raring to get out and vote Reform. She has seen rural Conservative party members defect to Farage en masse. 'I think it's anything but the other two, it's not because they're particularly embracing Reform,' she says. 'They think they can see the country's in trouble and they think the opportunities they had are not going to be there for their children and they're not going to have the same standard of living that we have.' When I approach a group of elderly farmers at the cattle auction to ask who they support, they reply one by one: 'Reform!' They express a familiar litany of complaints: the government is stealing from people who have worked all their life; asylum seekers are handed free television licenses; Starmer is really a communist. Largely former Conservatives or non-voters, they are keen to stick it to the political class at the next election. 'The Tories are useless, Labour are worse, the Lib Dems are just a bunch of crap,' says one. 'If I were 50 years younger I'd emigrate,' adds another. Standing outside in Hunter gear and summer dresses, one young family looks as if they have stepped from the pages of Country Living. 'Most of the world hates rural life,' says Ian Sweetman, a gunmaker from a farming background. 'People only see the bad, they don't take the time to see the good.' Dismayed by the lack of respect shown to field sports and agriculture online, he and his wife have developed an app to connect ruralites online. The modern world, its website complains, 'pushes country life into the corner and dubs it as outdated and unpopular'. Across rural Britain, this perceived disregard is metastasising into fury. For Labour's plans for economic growth to succeed, something else must give. Nuclear power stations, housing estates and solar panel farms will have to go somewhere. For many in the countryside, there is a sense their world is being sacrificed to bail out SW1. Whether farmers can build a broader coalition remains unclear, however. Starmer must hope they do not spark a conflagration. But there is no doubt that unless the government changes its approach to rural constituencies, the tractors will be back in Whitehall. [See also: A day out with Jeremy Corbyn's new party] Related
New York Post
17-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Incredible medieval home visited by legendary kings is for sale — but there's a catch
A jaw-dropping medieval property is on the real estate market in England, offering a pastoral life to interested buyers – but there's a catch. The property, called St. John's Jerusalem, was originally used by a group of warrior monks called the Knights Hospitallers. Advertisement It's located in the historic village of Sutton-at-Hone in Kent. The house dates back to the 12th century, according to real estate agency Strutt & Parker. It functioned as a preceptory, or a local headquarters and monastery for the knights, who fought in the Crusades. 'Dating from 1199 and set in moated gardens with a lodge cottage and former deer park, this historic house is privately set in a wonderful and very private and protected setting,' the listing reads. Advertisement The main house was remodeled in the Georgian era, still retaining some medieval charm. It boasts eight bedrooms, a high-ceilinged drawing room and a modernized kitchen. 8 St. John's Jerusalem, originally used by a group of warrior monks and dates back to the 12th century, is up for sale with unique stipulations. Strutt & Parker 8 According to the listing, the property is 'set in moated gardens with a lodge cottage and former deer park.' Strutt & Parker Advertisement The listing calls the main building a 'wonderfully atmospheric home of exceptional quality,' featuring a 13th-century chapel at its east end. 'The house is approached by a long carriage driveway, which meanders through the former deer park, beginning beside the two-bedroom lodge cottage … and ending at a generous turning circle with a central lawn in front of the house,' the listing says. 'This is a rare chance to acquire the opportunity to live in and care for this house.' The whole package is being sold in the range of £3,250,000 – equal to over $4.4 million U.S. dollars. Advertisement The catch? 8 The house has a modernized kitchen. Strutt & Parker 8 The main house was remodeled in the Georgian era, but still has some medieval charm. Strutt & Parker 8 A bathroom in the house. Strutt & Parker The property is not being sold outright — and plans call for it to be handed back to the National Trust in less than a century. The lease ends on Sept. 29, 2122. Edward Church, the real estate agent for the property, told Fox News Digital that listings like St. John's Jerusalem are rare. 'These are among the most special houses as they are in the custodianship of this body that protects houses of national importance,' Church said. Advertisement 'This is a rare chance to acquire the opportunity to live in and care for this house.' 8 Among the spaces at St. John's Jerusalem is a high-ceilinged drawing room. Strutt & Parker The agent also noted it's possible to extend the lease in the future. 8 One of the eight bedrooms on the property. Strutt & Parker Advertisement Church added, 'The lease is a necessary item and is something that really only exists in very rare circumstances.' Though the lease might dull the appeal of the listing for some, whoever purchases the property will be walking in the steps of kings. The 24-acre property was also regularly frequented by legendary medieval leaders, including King John and Henry III, with the earliest-recorded visit in 1214. 8 The plans for the house call for it to be given back to the National Trust by Sept. 29, 2122. Strutt & Parker Advertisement 'Subsequently, the lease of the buildings and lands was given to a series of important royal favorites with London connections such as John de Pulteney, who built Penshurst Place and Thomas Cromwell,' the listing notes. 'The Order's lands in England, Sutton-at-Hone included, were confiscated and sold off by Henry VIII in 1540.' The property also boasts a garden 'like no other,' complemented by an idyllic moat of a chalk stream and English yews, per Strutt & Parker. Advertisement The current owners 'have respected the history of the site (and the extensive archaeology beneath), including a garden of medicinal plants that complements the history of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, who established the original preceptory on the site,' the listing adds. 'An orchard (reflecting that established by naturalist Abraham Hill in 1670, who was responsible for introducing the Kentish Pippin apple to Kent) and a nuttery are found to the south of the house.'
The Herald Scotland
15-07-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
'Picturesque' Scottish estate with walled gardens for sale
Strutt and Parker is marketing Pluscarden Estate near Elgin which it described as an 'exceptional mixed-use estate'. It covers 1,365 acres and is offered for sale as a whole or in six lots. The agent said: 'The estate includes around 775 acres of arable and pastureland, as well as 545 acres of predominantly coniferous woodland, offering both immediate and long-term timber income potential. 'The main house, completed in 2008, sits in an elevated position and has been designed in a traditional style, with generous proportions and modern finishes throughout.' The estate includes arable land. (Image: Strutt & Parker) The agent also said: 'The gardens themselves are a highlight - mature, colourful and thoughtfully laid out, with sweeping lawns, established borders and a sheltered walled garden that hints at the property's more ornamental past.' The estate includes a second house - a traditional four-bedroom property known as Woodside - as well as a further cottage, a bothy and a range of traditional and modern outbuildings. It also includes a general-purpose agricultural building, workshops, garaging and traditional barns that could suit a range of future uses. The gardens are 'a highlight'. (Image: Strutt & Parker) The agent said: 'Pluscarden's location is part of its appeal: tucked into a quiet corner of Moray but just a short drive from Elgin's amenities, the sandy beaches of the Moray Firth, and the Speyside whisky trail'. Inverness is around 45 miles west, while Aberdeen lies 70 miles to the east, which the agent said puts the estate within reach of airports, mainline rail connections and the A96 corridor. Euan MacCrimmon, of Strutt and Parker in Inverness, said: 'Pluscarden Estate is an exceptional mixed-use estate - it's got the balance right. The combination of mature woodland, well-managed commercial forestry and prime farmland gives it strong fundamentals, while the principal house and gardens offer that lifestyle appeal. It's rare to find something of this scale, diversity and accessibility in this part of Scotland.' The estate is being marketed at offers over £6.5 million. Scottish law firm defies 'global headwinds' An Edinburgh-based legal giant has signalled an increasing appetite for deal-making across key sectors in Scotland as it booked a 15th consecutive year of growth. Stephen Goldie, managing partner of Brodies, offered an upbeat assessment of the corporate outlook following a tumultuous first half of the year defined by macroeconomic and geopolitical upheaval. The firm, which employs nearly 900 people across offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, and London, highlighted the 'resilience and ambition' of its clients amid the domestic and global headwinds as it reported an 11% rise in turnover to £126.7 million for the year ended April 30. The rise in turnover, which was driven by growth across all of the firm's core practice areas – banking and finance, corporate and commercial, dispute resolution and risk, personal and family, and real estate – helped lift operating profit above £50m from £49.2m the previous year. Profit per equity partner was recorded at £885,296. Scottish 'centre of excellence' sold to French giant A French group specialising in testing, inspection and certification has acquired a second business in Scotland in the latest of a series of "strategic investments" to strengthen its building safety and compliance services.
