Landlord Basics

£10m Cornish country estate Trevarno goes up for sale

A magnificent Cornish country estate dating back to 1246, is going against the gloomy property market tide, despite the £10 million price tag.

Trevarno, an estate near Helston, was put up for sale in September and Richard Cox, finance director for RadioCode Clocks who currently own Trevarno, said there had seen a great response.

“We even had one person who turned up at the estate last week who was unaware it was for sale and was very interested.” Although the bad weather had forced one viewer to postpone, Mr Cox said.

“The weather that Cornwall has suffered has been suffered upcountry and one of the potential (purchasers) was unable to get down because of the concern about travelling.

“The weather hasn’t improved matters, but on the other hand if people come down in the spring instead they will see the gardens at their very best.”

The estate has been owned for the last 16 years by RadioCode Clocks and the retirement of co-owner Nigel Helsby, has prompted its sale.

For its £10 million price tag Trevarno includes 723 acres, ten houses and cottages, seven farms, 20 full-time members of staff and 80,000 annual visitors.

It’s also home to the Helston Railway Company, a not-for-profit organisation and an acclaimed toy museum. The 70 acre gardens feature numerous specimen trees and shrubs and is in fact home to the National Museum of Gardening.
Mr Cox said that the vendors will sell the estate as a whole or split it up into 5 lots, but hopes were high that Trevarno would be sold as an ongoing visitor attraction.

“It is a complex commercial sale. I suppose it’s like selling a house, only worse as there is not just a house, there is an estate with farms attached and businesses. It is much worse than selling a house because there is so much information that needs to be gone into.”

“Selling Trevarno is not like selling a factory where you could just buy it and then move manufacture somewhere else.
“The gardens, for example, are an important part of the estate and you just can’t go and move them.

“The gardens and the estate will still need to be maintained and people will still need to be employed on the estate.”

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Tags: property for sale, property value

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 at 12:00 pm and is filed under property market, property prices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.