PTSept 2010 p74-77 property YC PJ
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The knowledge Property
A game on the doorstep You don’t even have to cross any roads to reach two very different polo clubs from two properties new to the market and steeped in the sport, says Georgie May hen we first bought Graffham Court in 1997, it was a shell with a sign on the door saying, “Enter at your own risk’!” says Dorothea Haverhals, the owner of Graffham Court in West Sussex. Since then the family has completely renovated the property, and it is on the market through JacksonStops for £10m. The 132-acre property, featuring a stick-and-ball ground and set among woods and paddocks right behind Cowdray’s Ambersham polo grounds, features 41 acres of paddocks, 12 stables and barns for storage. All the facilities were put in by the current owners, including an all-weather school, an exercise track and the “bones” of a cross-country course, which could be expanded. The property couldn’t be closer to the heart of polo country: beyond the six Ambersham polo grounds, plus the adjacent Brooksfield, Ellerston patron Jamie Packer is laying a further two grounds, and a couple of miles away as the crow flies is Cowdray House – now on the market for £25m (see page 74) – and the Cowdray’s Lawns grounds. Heyshott Common provides miles of sandy bridleways and the South Downs are within easy hacking distance.
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Graffham Court (£10m), just minutes from Ambersham by bridleway, has 41 acres and its own stick-and-ball field
and attractive gardens, where there is also a pool (currently not in use). Two further properties in the grounds – with three and two bedrooms respectively – could house grooms or players. Another substantial property at the heart of polo country – albeit a lower-key district – is Sharrads
“It’s business as usual for Rutland Polo club, which has a lease until September 2014” – Edwin de Lisle “A bridleway leads straight to the Ambersham polo fields,” says Dorothea, a former District Commissioner of the Cowdray Hunt branch of the Pony Club whose daughters play polo, “but we still box our ponies the half-mile to save them and their bandages from getting dirty.” The magnificent main house, a late 19th-century build approached by a rhododendron-lined drive, is set over three floors, with four reception rooms, eight bedrooms, five bathrooms, a games room and a wine cellar. The building has been completely and stylishly renovated by the Haverhals family. An orangery added by the family overlooks flat lawns
Farm (£2.1m through Fox Grant) in Rutland. The 234-acre property’s three match grounds are leased to Rutland Polo Club, two of them until 2014. The farm, which has been in the Anker family since the polo club was set up there in 1971, comprises six lots, which can be bought together or separately. The long-leased Rutland grounds sit in the 73.5acre Lot 1B (£550,000), which also includes a paddock, a stick-and-ball ground and arable land that could be developed for polo purposes. “It’s business as usual for Rutland Polo Club,” said Edwin de Lisle, vice president of the club. “The polo club has a lease until September 2014,
For further information with regard to equestrian property sales contracts, please contact Mark Charter at Blake Lapthorn directly: on 023 8085 7116; via email, at mark.charter@bllaw.co.uk; or write to Mark Charter, Partner, Real Estate, Blake Lapthorn, New Kings Court, Tollgate, Chandlers Ford, Eastleigh, SO53 3LG
76 September 2010 www.polotimes.co.uk
so the club is secure until then. It will be ideal if someone comes along and buys the whole thing for polo purposes, so there is an opportunity for greater things.” Lot 1A features a three-bedroom bungalow with scope to extend, 16 stables – some of which are liveried to polo ponies – an indoor school and two further polo grounds. The final part of Lot 1 – 1C – compromises 33 acres of paddocks next to Lot 1A’s stables. Lots 2, 3 and 4 are arable land currently let to a farmer whose agreement ceases at the end of this year’s harvest. Also in a prime polo spot – with equestrian rather than polo facilities – is New Barn Farm (£2.25m through Knight Frank) in the village of Chedworth, seven miles from Cirencester, convenient for several Gloucestershire clubs. The 140-acre property includes a four-bedroom converted Cotswold barn; an annex, cottage and two flats; 17 stables in an American barn, a horse walker, all-weather manege and cross-country course, plus post-and-rail paddocks. The village is already home to a polo-playing family: 0-goal patron Simon England lives just across the valley. F