The 1,800-acre estate of the man who bought Stonehenge has come up for sale at £25 million

Down south in Wiltshire, Alex Lawson of Savills is leading the sale of the prestigious, 1,796-acre Bapton Manor farming and sporting estate, which includes the hamlet of Bapton, a mile from Wylye and 15 miles north-west of Salisbury, at the northern edge of the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, an area of clear chalkstreams and rolling downland.

According to the snappily-titled Victoria County History of Wiltshire—Vol 8 (1965), in the 18th century, Bapton was a community of small farms, which were progressively leased and then bought by the Davis family, until, by 1840, they owned everything except the glebe.

During the 19th century, the Davises and their tenants improved the property both as an agricultural and sporting estate, building houses, cottages and barns and planting woodlands. Bapton became renowned for livestock breeding and, by the early 20th century, a shorthorn beef herd established by the Willis family in the mid 1800s and continued by Sir Cecil Chubb was said to be ‘second to none in the kingdom’.

Sir Cecil, who owned Bapton Manor from 1927 until his death in 1934, is famously known for his purchase of nearby Stonehenge, advertised for sale in Country Life, which he gave to the nation in 1918.

It's quite possible that Sir Cecil bought all his property back then from Country Life, because Bapton, like Stonehenge before it, was also advertised in the magazine:

The current owners acquired the estate in 1968.

Bapton Manor estate is offered either as a whole at a guide price of £25m, or in six lots. A guide of £5.25m is quoted for Lot 1, comprising the handsome, Grade II-listed stone manor house set in 64 acres of water meadows abutting the River Wylye to the north, with 353 yards of single-bank fishing, and, to the east, a number of paddocks currently let on licence.

The house, which dates from the 17th century, was rebuilt in the mid 1700s and extended in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Currently unoccupied and in need of updating, it offers 8,250sq ft of well-proportioned living space on two floors, including an entrance hall, three fine reception rooms, a study, office, kitchen, breakfast room, various utilities, eight bedrooms and five bathrooms.

The lot also includes three cottages, stables and out-buildings, plus a swimming pool and tennis court in need of restoration.

Lot 2, Bapton Manor Farmyard, priced at £1.25m, comprises a four-bedroom farmhouse with an extensive range of modern and traditional farm buildings, some with potential for conversion to alternative commercial use.

Lot 3, the Bapton Fishings, on offer at £1.3m, is 57 acres of pasture, a pair of cottages and 673 yards of double-bank and 924 yards of single-bank fishing on the Wylye. Lot 4, Cowleaze Farm, a former dairy farm, covers a range of farm buildings, a cottage and 61 acres of arable farmland, on offer at £1.1m.

Lot 5, priced at £14.5m, comprises 1,445 acres of gently rolling downland and steep valleys, the sporting rights to which were previously let to a well-known local shoot. Lot 6, on offer at £1.7m, is a separate ring-fenced, 164-acre block of productive arable land on the western edge of the village of Chilmark, with far-reaching panoramic views over the Nadder and Wylye valleys.

Bapton Manor is available as a whole for £25 million or in lots, through Savills — see more information and pictures..