The largest farmland sale this year is in prospect as Earl Compton, heir apparent to the Marquess of Northampton, is to market his 3,000-acre Surrey estate.

The estate, 18 miles from the City of London, will have a price tag of around £25m. Savills, the selling agent, said it had been instructed “in order to take advantage of investment opportunities elsewhere”. The estate was bought in the early 1940s by the earl’s family.

He is selling into a still falling market for land, although new data from Savills show values of working farmland appear to be stabilising. The agent said it had proved more resilient to the economic downturn than other property asset classes.

Financial Times