Buyers from across the globe keen to own £20m estate

The sale of a Yorkshire village where time has stood still has captured the imagination of buyers worldwide.
The Dawnay EstateThe Dawnay Estate
The Dawnay Estate

The sale of a Yorkshire village where time has stood still has captured the imagination of buyers worldwide.

Estate agent Tom Watson of Cundalls has had hundreds of enquiries about the £20m Dawnay estate that includes most of the village of West Heslerton. It also comes with a 21-bedroom historic hall, 43 houses, a pub and restaurant, a garage/petrol station, a sports pavilion and playing fields, plus over 2,000 acres of surrounding countryside.

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The story broke in the Yorkshire Post and Cundalls has since been inundated with calls and emails. Tom Watson says: “We have had hundreds of requests for brochures and some serious players , both wealthy individuals and corporate concerns from the UK and from other countries, have shown interest in the property. It is early days but I am confident that we will find a buyer.”

However, he stresses that there is no rush to sell.

“We haven’t even formally launched the estate for sale yet . We will be advertising it locally and nationally over several weeks, conducting viewings and taking time to consider offers.”

While developers, investors and, perhaps even rich Arabs and Russian oligarchs, will be rubbing their hands at the thought of its potential, the owners would prefer to sell to someone who will continue the previous owner’s legacy.

Miss Eve Dawnay died five years ago leaving the perfectly preserved village with a thriving, diverse community supporting a host of amenities. The village, near Malton, still has a primary school and its own football, cricket and bowling teams.
Rents for the village homes and commercial properties were kept deliberately low so that local people could afford to live and work there.

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The endearingly eccentric Oxford-educated spinster owned the bulk of West Heslerton after inheriting it from her father in 1964. Her aim was to conserve a traditional and affordable way of life.

“Miss Dawnay was a wonderful lady,” says Tom, a director of Cundalls, who attended the village school. “She was very kind and the property rents are, and have always been, very low. This has helped keep a village community with a mixed group of ages and there are obviously a lot of people hoping that somebody with a similar benevolent nature will come along to take over the estate.

“There are now endless possibilities to convert buildings, develop plots and explore commercial opportunities. But I know that in an ideal world Miss Dawnay’s family would really like to see the estate carry on in a similar vein.”

The village has been owned by the family for 150 years. Miss Dawnay spent most of her life there. After graduating from Oxford University with a BA in French in 1948, she worked in Paris and London before returning to Yorkshire.

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When she died in December 2010, aged 84, there was no single heir and so the only realistic option for the beneficiaries was to sell.

One of the stand-out properties in the sale is the 21-bedroom West Heslerton Hall. It hasn’t been lived in for 30 years after Miss Dawnay moved to a smaller, purpose-built property. The hall now offers the potential to be modernised or converted.

Tom Watson believes that there is room for further income growth on the estate without spoiling the character of the village. He suggests that the land could be developed to create a challenging and varied shoot. He adds that would-be buyers are a mix of those who want to exploit the potential of the land and buildings, along with those who share Miss Dawnay’s ethos.