PurBee
Well-Known Member
I often scout for land - nice places in rural areas…its become a hobby!
I thought i’d post this in case anyone was looking for grazing land for sale in a nice quiet rural area. This site is cheap as it comes with some caveats (explained below), but its sold cheaper than usual land as interest in it will be limited due to its limited use potential.
I’ve found a fairly large tucked-away acreage place for auction sale.
(Note: sleuthing about this site i found this was up for sale at auction oct ‘22 listed as sold for £110k, guide price then £100k, however being re-listed for feb auction date guide price @£80k now, so presumably bidder didnt complete, and presumably due to lack of other bids theyve dropped the price)
It’s 15 acres total - with 12 acres being a Scheduled Ancient Momument. You may have heard of ‘Maiden Bower HillFort’? It’s THAT for sale!
It has a massive bridleway ringed path all around the area that is said to be miles long.
There’s no physical above ground monument, it looks just like a massive round field, with decent hedging/shelter along the round border. The monument in this case, is below ground.
Most people balk at the opportunity as similarly with listed buildings there’s restrictions how refurbishments can be done - with agricultural sites that are ‘listed’ as ‘ancient momuments’ - there’s restrictions on use.
These restrictions are soley about not disturbing the site below 30cm of ground.
Sites like these are used for grazing and agriculture mainly. They CAN be used. You just cant do excavations.
There’s already agriculture crops being grown in surrounding areas of the ‘fort’ complex, that was disturbed ages ago and believed to be much larger than the smaller 12 acre round field listed as the official ‘fort’ today.
Historic england advisory pages on these sites say they get applications for all kinds of activities on these sites, and they 95% get approved, contrary to popular belief. This is due to the ‘relics’ being submerged below ground that they wish to preserve, so many sites are just fields being used for grazing and agriculture purposes. (Deep ploughing and sub-soiling is not allowed on these sites, as that goes beyond the 30cm depth)
Over-grazing the land is not allowed if it causes it to be churned up to 30cm depth obviously.
When youve bought the site, you are the owner of the site, as a privately owned site. The public cannot freely access the site. Even Heritage England have to ask permission to visit and inspect the site if they need to.
You are the private owner.
Here’s the sale listing:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/130713356#/?channel=COM_BUY
Here’s info about owning scheduled monument sites:
https://historicengland.org.uk/imag...led-monuments-guide-for-owners-and-occupiers/
Here’s more info on it’s history (neolithic!):
https://ancientmonuments.uk/113803-maiden-bower-hillfort-houghton-regis#.Y8l9RC2nyfA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_Bower_hillfort
About the land for horse grazing use from what i’ve found out so far sleuthing on the internet:
There’s 12 acres which is the actual scheduled monument. There’s 3 acres leading to the monument that i am lead to believe is not under this schedule. The auction legal pack will detail if this is true. An archeologist online pointed out the monument site and it wasnt the 3 acres leading to it, which is also for sale with the 12 acres monument field sale.
The 3 acres leading to the main 12 acre field could be used to erect shelters and stables, once change of use has been checked/applied for.
The ability to have above ground installed stabling/shelter/sheds is far more likely on the 3 acres, than the 12 acre monument field.
The site is surrounded by agriculture fields, old chalk quarries, lovely views.
SOIL TYPE/GRASS SPECIES - GRAZING QUALITY:
The soil of the site is likely to be chalk-heavy, considering the area is chalk mining. Very alkaline/calcium heavy. Like acidic soils need calcium adding, calcium soils need humus/sulphur adding to drop the likely high PH. In videos of visitors to the site i can see the light coloured soil and calcium loving plants.
From youtube videos to the site, i could see the grassland species to be very mixed ‘wild meadow’ plants. Plenty of wild smooth horse-friendly thistles, fescues and weeds like cats ear. Cat’s ear is toxic to horses, as we know, so this is not a site i would buy and straight-away put horses on to graze, despite it looking at first glance to be a ‘natural wild meadow’.
There’s significant cat’s ear and other weeds from what i saw that i would be inclined to kill off and re-sow the entire area If cats ear was abundant everywhere on the site. This re-generational resowing wouldnt contravene the monument guidelines of use.
Here’s a pic of the site ive drawn some info on:
Drone footage of the site:
I thought i’d post this in case anyone was looking for grazing land for sale in a nice quiet rural area. This site is cheap as it comes with some caveats (explained below), but its sold cheaper than usual land as interest in it will be limited due to its limited use potential.
I’ve found a fairly large tucked-away acreage place for auction sale.
(Note: sleuthing about this site i found this was up for sale at auction oct ‘22 listed as sold for £110k, guide price then £100k, however being re-listed for feb auction date guide price @£80k now, so presumably bidder didnt complete, and presumably due to lack of other bids theyve dropped the price)
It’s 15 acres total - with 12 acres being a Scheduled Ancient Momument. You may have heard of ‘Maiden Bower HillFort’? It’s THAT for sale!
It has a massive bridleway ringed path all around the area that is said to be miles long.
There’s no physical above ground monument, it looks just like a massive round field, with decent hedging/shelter along the round border. The monument in this case, is below ground.
Most people balk at the opportunity as similarly with listed buildings there’s restrictions how refurbishments can be done - with agricultural sites that are ‘listed’ as ‘ancient momuments’ - there’s restrictions on use.
These restrictions are soley about not disturbing the site below 30cm of ground.
Sites like these are used for grazing and agriculture mainly. They CAN be used. You just cant do excavations.
There’s already agriculture crops being grown in surrounding areas of the ‘fort’ complex, that was disturbed ages ago and believed to be much larger than the smaller 12 acre round field listed as the official ‘fort’ today.
Historic england advisory pages on these sites say they get applications for all kinds of activities on these sites, and they 95% get approved, contrary to popular belief. This is due to the ‘relics’ being submerged below ground that they wish to preserve, so many sites are just fields being used for grazing and agriculture purposes. (Deep ploughing and sub-soiling is not allowed on these sites, as that goes beyond the 30cm depth)
Over-grazing the land is not allowed if it causes it to be churned up to 30cm depth obviously.
When youve bought the site, you are the owner of the site, as a privately owned site. The public cannot freely access the site. Even Heritage England have to ask permission to visit and inspect the site if they need to.
You are the private owner.
Here’s the sale listing:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/130713356#/?channel=COM_BUY
Here’s info about owning scheduled monument sites:
https://historicengland.org.uk/imag...led-monuments-guide-for-owners-and-occupiers/
Here’s more info on it’s history (neolithic!):
https://ancientmonuments.uk/113803-maiden-bower-hillfort-houghton-regis#.Y8l9RC2nyfA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_Bower_hillfort
About the land for horse grazing use from what i’ve found out so far sleuthing on the internet:
There’s 12 acres which is the actual scheduled monument. There’s 3 acres leading to the monument that i am lead to believe is not under this schedule. The auction legal pack will detail if this is true. An archeologist online pointed out the monument site and it wasnt the 3 acres leading to it, which is also for sale with the 12 acres monument field sale.
The 3 acres leading to the main 12 acre field could be used to erect shelters and stables, once change of use has been checked/applied for.
The ability to have above ground installed stabling/shelter/sheds is far more likely on the 3 acres, than the 12 acre monument field.
The site is surrounded by agriculture fields, old chalk quarries, lovely views.
SOIL TYPE/GRASS SPECIES - GRAZING QUALITY:
The soil of the site is likely to be chalk-heavy, considering the area is chalk mining. Very alkaline/calcium heavy. Like acidic soils need calcium adding, calcium soils need humus/sulphur adding to drop the likely high PH. In videos of visitors to the site i can see the light coloured soil and calcium loving plants.
From youtube videos to the site, i could see the grassland species to be very mixed ‘wild meadow’ plants. Plenty of wild smooth horse-friendly thistles, fescues and weeds like cats ear. Cat’s ear is toxic to horses, as we know, so this is not a site i would buy and straight-away put horses on to graze, despite it looking at first glance to be a ‘natural wild meadow’.
There’s significant cat’s ear and other weeds from what i saw that i would be inclined to kill off and re-sow the entire area If cats ear was abundant everywhere on the site. This re-generational resowing wouldnt contravene the monument guidelines of use.
Here’s a pic of the site ive drawn some info on:
Drone footage of the site:
Last edited:
never any problem with drainage at least.