Harkstead Hall, one of the largest sporting and agricultural estates to have been recently marketed in Suffolk, has come up for sale through Savills Ipswich, with a guide price of £9 million. The 940 acre estate, with links to Swallows & Amazons author Arthur Ransome, is located on the picturesque Shotley Peninsula and is one of the biggest estates to come to the market in East Anglia this year.

Peter Start, Head of Rural for Savills Eastern region, comments: "Harkstead Hall is principally a very good sporting and farming estate. It has excellent farmland qualities with arable, woodland and grassland as well as one of the finest private family shoots in Suffolk. It is the largest block of land to be offered to the market in the county for some time and this, along with the property's history, makes it a significant instruction. We are sure that interest will be high both from UK purchasers and overseas investors."

The Harkstead Hall estate comprises a period six bedroom farmhouse with mature gardens and grounds as well as a well located, spacious modern farmhouse and four cottages. The commercial farming operation is subject to a Farm Business Tenancy and there are both traditional and modern farm buildings. Harkstead Hall has an excellent established shoot with well laid out mature woodland. There is also business space yielding substantial non agricultural income and the total estate income is in excess of £200,000 a year.

Set between the River Orwell and River Stour estuaries, Arthur Ransome made Harkstead Hall his home for a short while from 1939 to 1940. During this period he wrote both Secret Water, set in Hamford Water nearby, and Big Six, set on the Norfolk Broads, both part of the Swallows and Amazons series of books.

The Harkstead Hall Estate has been in its present ownership since the 1950s and  was built up through land acquisition in the 1960s and 1970s. Harkstead Hall is not only in a popular farming area but also a hot spot for commuters and London buyers, with Manningtree Station eight miles away offering good connections to London Liverpool Street. The established estate is surrounded by attractive and undulating countryside with outstanding estuary views. Both the Shotley Peninsula and the adjacent Rivers Orwell and Stour provide excellent sporting, sailing, fishing and other activities with the popular Pinmill only two miles away.