Iconic local farm for sale

FERTILE GROUND: Cranleigh Station at Maxwell is about to embark on a new chapter. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Iconic 630ha Whanganui sheep and beef farm, Cranleigh Station, is set to change hands after 40 years under the stewardship of its existing owners.

The farm was employed as a finishing block for Mount View Station in the hills just beyond Mangamahu on the Burma Hill for the bulk of those 40 years.

Lewis Tucker, a Hawke's Bay-based investment banking business focusing on agriculture, has been engaged to facilitate the sale.

The Maxwell property is roughly 35km northwest of Whanganui, surrounded by two of New Zealand's premium farming regions; Taranaki and Manawatu.

The property's scale, location, naturally nutrient rich loam soils and reliable rainfall make it a premium and highly strategic farming asset.

The property was established in the early half of the 20th century by well-known and respected horse breeder, the late J G Alexander.

During his time Mr Alexander meticulously kept and farmed about 500ha of land between Maxwell and Whanganui, successfully establishing a romney breeding operation that enabled him to capitalise on the wool boom of the mid-20th century, as well as managing a popular and colourful horse stud.

In 1940, in the midst of World War II and fear of a German invasion of Britain, the champion British thoroughbred Coronach was sent to New Zealand for safekeeping on Cranleigh Station.

He was the first English Derby winner to step foot on New Zealand shores and the property went on to produce a good number of top fillies which were sent to Australia to race.

Home to both champion romney sires and racehorses alike, Cranleigh earned its reputation as being a top-quality breeding unit, with its romney rams being sold around the world for record prices during the 1950s.

The most notable of which was a shipment of rams sold to a buyer in Argentina for more than 2000 guineas for each ram, the then cost of a three-bedroom house.

By the early 1970s and nearing old age, Mr Alexander was looking to sell Cranleigh to a buyer willing to continue his successful romney stud.

In 1974 Cranleigh was sold to the owners of Mount View Station, and represented a premium property which complemented its hill-country breeding operation.

The current owner has enjoyed more than 40 years of farming at Cranleigh, increasing the total footprint to more than 630ha, fattening a good proportion of its terminal stock from its breeding properties, and growing a wide range of feed and cereal crops including barley, oats and maize.

The existing farm manager Russell Addenbrooke has been on the station for 24 years.
"The property is an immaculately-presented pastoral farm of scale in the region with genuine land-use optionality," Mr Addenbrooke said.

Tenders for the property close on October 26.

Ben Orton is leading the transaction for Lewis Tucker.