Midsummer

The Fold

Agents in land · smallholdings & farmsteads · the English shires

We read the land before the house.

The Fold sells small farms by folio, the way land deserves: every acre measured in acres, roods and perches; every burden printed beside every blessing; every boundary walked before a word is written.

Three holdings are in the book this quarter. Their parcels are drawn on the sheet alongside — set the season dial and the land will tell you what it does all year.

N.B. — three counties folded onto one sheet, a liberty of the drawing office. The boundaries are nonetheless exact. We are named for the sheep-fold, and for this.

The folio method

  1. 01 Walk

    Every boundary, with the vendor, in boots, before we take the instruction. Distances are paced and then measured; the two rarely agree, and the tape wins.

  2. 02 Search

    Title, easements, wayleaves, drains, stints, chancel repair. We pull the dull papers first, because the dull papers are where the surprises live.

  3. 03 State

    The folio prints what we found, burdens first. If the yard floods at Martinmas, it says so. Candour is cheaper than a fallen sale.

In the book · Michaelmas sitting, three holdings

Folio ITitle FLD 40211 · freehold

Pippard’s Orchard

Ullingswick · Herefordshire

Guide £695,000 14a 1r 22p in all — 14.39 acres, 5.82 ha

A working damson-and-apple holding on the red loam above Ullingswick — four small closes folded around a brick farmhouse (1860s, unlisted) and a stone cider house that still smells of the job. Two hundred standard trees, half in their prime; the rest are your first decade’s work. Mains water, and a spring that has never been asked to prove itself.

Schedule of land, as walked and measured
ParcelUsearp
Top Orchardorchard — damson & apple238
Low Orchardorchard — cider fruit3224
Cider Closepasture3216
The Pightleorchard & garden4114
In all14122

Soil

Bromyard series — silt loam over Old Red Sandstone · ALC Grade 2 · pH 6.4

Rainfall

768 mm in the year; October to January do half the work.

Burdens, stated first

  • Public footpath UW-14 crosses Top Orchard, stile to stile, on the line drawn.
  • A right of way at all times, with or without vehicles, over the yard to Glebe Cottage.
  • Chancel repair liability noted against the title; indemnity in place since 1988 at £9 a year. We checked.

Blessings

  • The spring in The Pightle, unmetered and unbothered since anyone can remember.
  • Standing timber and this year’s fruit set pass with the land.
Outbuildings, as found
BuildingFabricDateCondition
Pole barnsteel, 5 bays1978sound
Cider housestone, slatec.1840″
Stable rangebrick, corrugatedc.1900needs a roof
Cart shed″, tile″leans, honestly
Boundary walked: 1,072 m — five furlongs and a bit. Allow forty minutes and one gate that argues.

Folio IITitle FLD 38904 · freehold

Hollowmell Steading

Clun · the Shropshire hills

Guide £1,150,000 102a 0r 1p in all — 102.01 acres, 41.28 ha · with a stint of 120 ewes on Hollowmell Common (CL 41)

A hill steading at the top of its own lane, where Shropshire starts behaving like Wales. Stone house, bank barn and shippon in one long range, and a hundred and two acres that climb from lambing close to open brow. Sold as a going concern with the flock by separate negotiation, or bare. The wind is included either way.

Schedule of land, as walked and measured
ParcelUsearp
Mell Browrough grazing1303
Near Intakepasture1322
Far Intakerough grazing23219
The Sidelandspasture16135
Hollowmell Bankrough grazing23217
Lambing Closemeadow, mown1135
In all10201

Soil

Thin peaty loam over Silurian mudstone · ALC Grade 4, Grade 5 on the brow · pH 5.1

Rainfall

1,314 mm in the year. It rains. The land is priced accordingly.

Burdens, stated first

  • Common rights as registered; the commoners’ association meets twice a year and expects attendance.
  • Overhead wayleave (11 kV) crosses Far Intake; the board pays £24.60 a year and always has.
  • The spring above the house supplies two neighbouring properties by right. It has not failed in living memory, which is not a warranty.

Blessings

  • The stint: 120 ewes on Hollowmell Common, registered under CL 41 and exercised every year since registration.
  • A bank barn you could turn a bus in, and a dip & fold in stone, as found.
Outbuildings, as found
BuildingFabricDateCondition
Bank barnstone, slatec.1810sound
Shippon″″″
Lambing shedtimber, tin1994serviceable
Dip & foldstoneundatedas found
Boundary walked: 2,608 m — a mile and five furlongs, most of it uphill in at least one direction.

Folio IIITitle FLD 41277 · freehold

Wenfold Mill

Lyddington · Rutland

Guide £985,000 36a 3r 13p in all — 36.83 acres, 14.91 ha · riparian both banks, 640 yards

A watermill on the Wen with its meadows still attached — which is rarer than the mill. The wheel turns (it does not grind; the stones are dressed but idle), the leat and weir are yours to the crown, and thirty-six acres of ings run down both banks, cut for hay after the fritillaries have seeded.

Schedule of land, as walked and measured
ParcelUsearp
Mill Hamfloodplain meadow7034
Great Ingsmeadow — MG4, old1325
Eel Garthpasture831
Little Ingsmeadow7112
In all36313

Soil

Alluvium over Lias clay · ALC Grade 3 · the ings are MG4 — old meadow, never ploughed

Rainfall

612 mm in the year; the Wen delivers the rest in person.

Burdens, stated first

  • Footpath along the towpath bank, well used and well behaved.
  • Weir works need Environment Agency consent; the last consent (2019) took eleven weeks.
  • Great Ings and Mill Ham lie in flood zone 3 and flood on purpose — that is what a floodplain meadow is. The house sits 1.9 m above the highest recorded water (1998).

Blessings

  • Riparian rights both banks for 640 yards; the right to impound to the crown of the weir under the 1834 award.
  • An eel house of 1834, unused since 1972. The eels have not been consulted.
Outbuildings, as found
BuildingFabricDateCondition
Millstone, slate, 3 storeys1794sound
Granarystone, slate1811″
Cart hoveltimber, tilec.1850fair
Eel housebrick1834as found
Boundary walked: 2,118 m — a mile and two furlongs, flat as a griddle, wet socks likely.

The year, kept

The dial on the sheet sets the season here too. It is the same land all year; it just tells you different truths. Choose a quarter:

Terms, stated plainly

Fee
One and a half per cent of the price achieved — fixed, and printed here rather than agreed over lunch. It includes the folio, the survey drawings and the walking.
Guides
A guide is a number we believe. We do not do “offers in excess of”; land is not a raffle.
Burdens
Listed unprompted, before the blessings. Vendors sometimes wince. Buyers never do twice.
Viewings
In boots, at the land’s pace. Allow half a day; the mill takes longer if the wheel is turning.

Register with the Fold

Tell us what you can manage, not what you can imagine: acres you can walk on a Sunday, the station you will actually use, and what the land should be doing while you are elsewhere.