This year has seen a healthy number of large farms, of 100ac and over, come on the market. Now a fine 217ac farm, with modern house and farmyard, is for sale in Co Wicklow. It’s Kilnamanagh Farm, near Glenealy. It’s for sale by private treaty, as a whole, from Savills with an asking price of €2.5m.

No doubt this will be one of the largest farms coming up for sale in 2022. It’s also likely to catch the eyes of a large number of potential buyers, from all backgrounds: farming, equestrian and business.

The farm is in a very good location, fronting on to the L1113, midway between Rathdrum and Wicklow town, 2km from an interchange on the M9 motorway.

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It’s 7km to Wicklow town, 9km to Arklow and 60km to Dublin city centre, via the M50. A large holding in this location, in this county, will be of interest to the business buyer.

The land is in one block with frontage on two public roads.

The land is all in one squarish block and good-quality. It varies from 52m (170 feet) above sea level on the southern boundary to a high of 151m (459 feet) at the other end. The rear of the farm fronts on to another local road, so in all there is a lengthy 1.9km of road frontage.

This is very much a working farm. It’s laid out in 15 main fields. Currently there is 170ac in tillage and crops, 39ac in permanent pasture and 3ac in woodland.

The house has three bedrooms.

The land is free draining and has been maintained in very good condition. Internal roadways give access from the yard out through the fields. The farm is for sale with entitlements to EU Basic Payment. So there is plenty there to interest farmer buyers.

Farm buildings

The house and farmyard are together in the centre of the land and about 200m back from the public road.

The farmyard was originally used as a cattle yard but is now set up for equestrian use with three separate stable blocks with 21 stables.

Most of the farm is suitable for ploughing and currently under crops.

The largest was originally a seven-bay, double-sided slatted cattle unit with tank, concrete walls and a centre passage. It is now set up with 13 stables using flooring matts and timber partitions. The auctioneers note that it could easily revert to a cattle unit.

Much of the grassland was reseeded in recent years.

There are calving pens, livestock handling facilities with holding area, a wash down area for horses and tack room. There are two other large, metal clad buildings in the yard, currently used as machinery sheds, and two silage pits.

This older farm building is also used as stabling for horses.

There are two open sand arenas, of 40m x 20m and 60m x 40m. These have Wexford sand underfoot and stud railing. The equestrian facilities are currently let out by the owner and run as a livery yard.

There are two sand arenas.

This stable block could easily be converted back into a slatted cattle unit.

The house

The single house was built in 1974, is 1,054 square feet in area and has three bedrooms. It has an elevated, south-facing position with views.

There is a living room, dining room and kitchen. The house has double glazed windows, a woodburning stove in the living room and French glass double doors in the dining area.