853
THE ESTATES GAZETTE
Mat 20, 1899.
Mr. J. M. Porter, of the Estate Office, Colwyn Bay, North Wales, has recently disposed of a charming freehold residential property of about 22 acres, known as Nantyglyn, for £6,000 ; a pretty marine residence, West-bury, situated on the Promenade, for £3,500 ; the Sycamores, a private residence near the Pwllycrochan Woods, for £2,600 ; three boarding houses in Prince’s Drive, producing £180 per annum, for £3,150 ; and Rose-cottage, Sea Yiew-terrace, (gross annual rent £26, subject to chief rent £2 13s. 4d.), for £700.
Messrs. Millar, Son and Co. announce that they have just sold that important freehold residential, sporting and agricultural estate, known as Mynthurst, situate three miles from Reigate and Betehworth Stations, comprising a mansion, park, extensive woodlands and a number of farms, amounting to an area of 1,183 acres. The estate is well known for its sporting amenities and the timber thereon has been valued at about £10,000. They have also sold Lowtber House, Shurdington, Cheltenham, comprising an attractive family residence with buildings and abont 6£ acres of land.
Messrs. Hampton and Sons have sold Fern-wood, Wimbledon-park, a freehold mansion and 12j- acres, and Hayward Lodge, near Blanford, a freehold residence and 54 acres (which were to have been offeied by auction at tbe Mart, on Monday last). They have also disposed of Weyspriogs, Haslemere, a freehold residence with about 9 acres which was offered to auction about a fortnight since. The same firm have also sold Fernwood, Wimbledon-park, a mansion and 121־ acres, and Hayward Lodge, Blandford, a freehold resilence and 51 acres. These properties were to have been submitted to auction at the Mart, Tokenhouse-yard, E.C., on Monday last. Ocher residences sold privately by the same ficm include Weyspriogs, Haslemere, and Devon House, 154, Highbury New-park, both of which were announced for sale at the iVJart. Castle Tower, Wimbledon, a freehold residence and 7! acres, and Osborne Lodge, Bellaggis, Surrey a freehold re.-idence with gardens, have also been disp׳sed of by them.
Royal Horse Show, Richmond, Surrey.—■ Active preparations are now being made in the Old Deer Park, Richmond, for the holding of the eighth annual horse show, under the management of the Richmond (Surrey) Horse Show Society, Limited. Owing to the great demand made for seats on the grand stand the committee have deemed it advisable to erect an additional stand to accommodate the applicants. Plans of stands can he seen and tickets obtained at the offices, 1, the Little-green, Richmond. We beg to remind intending exhibitors that the entries close with the seertary at the above address to-day (Saturday), or, with double fees, on Monday, May 22.
The Royal Hotel, Weymotjtii.—A new and handsome Royal Hotel has just been opened in Weymouth, containing over a hundred rooms, including a drawing room, with Sheraton furniture, and shades of gold, a fine banqueting hall and billiard room, Oriental Hall, lounge and private sitting rooms. The building has been artistically and sumptuously furnished and appointed by Messrs. Oetzmann and Co., of Hampstead-ro&d, W., for the proprietor, Mr. Vinnicombe, who has had electric light and telephones fitted. The Royal Hotel occupies a fine position in the charming and fashionable resort of Weymouth, and in the vicinity of the Channel Islands.
Surveyors’	Institution.—Mr.	Graham
Mould’s pupils were successful in the 1899 examination to the extent of 83 per cent, for professional Associates, and 100 per cent, for Fellows, whilst during the last four years all his Fellowship students have been successful. All the prizes but one at the recent examinations were obtained by pupils of Mr. Richard Parry, F.S.I., of 27, Great George-street, Westminster, and more than half the names on the list of successful candidates are those of gentlemen who took his course of preparation. The winner of the Crawter Prize was prepared under the tuition of Mr. Philip E. Pilditch, F.S.I., of 2, Pall-mall East, Charing-croas, and of the gentlemen taking his course of training 90 per cent, were successful, all the Fellowship candidates passing without exception. The whole of the nine candidates coached by Mr. .1. H. West Wheeler, F.S.I., of 189, Fulham-road, South Kensington, passed the recent Intermediate examination of the Auctioneers’ Institute, one obtaining honours ; five of these gentlemen were prepared by correspondence. Mr. Wheeler’s class for next year’s! examination is jus!¿ being formed.
A River Residence.—Boating men and others will he interested to hear of the forthcoming sale of a capital cottage residence, known as Trescoe, situate in St. Peter’s-street, Marlow, which will he offered to auction at the Crown Hotel, Marlow, on May 25, by Messrs. •Lawrence and Son.
Nobody, save perhaps the applicant, will regret Mr. Justice Byrne’s refusal to sanction the sale of the Hope diamond because its life-owner, Lord Francis Hope, is in need of money. The offer which had been made for it was £18,000 ; and as the judge pointed out, that was not sufficiently large to enable Lord Francis to live at Deepdene and take his proper position. Moreover the application was opposed by the whole body of the reversioners. The decision is to be applauded, because there has grown up too great a readiness on the part of the courts to grant the applications of life-tenants for the sale of heirlooms. There is always the possibility of a rich reversioner succeeding to a property which has been denuded by an extravagant life-renter, with the complaisant assistance of the Court, of its pictures or books, its fine furniture or other heirlooms. The new owners could well afford to keep up tbe family seat without sacrifices ; but the possessions end״ared by sentiment have gone and very few of them indeed can ever be brought back. In this particular case, of the Deepdene pictures £120,000 worth have already been sold— and more’s the pity.
Ьц flrtbde ®mig.
Since his auction, on Tuesdiy, Mr, W. N Willoughby has sold the remaining two houses in his list, Nos. 49 and 51, Kaollys-road, Streatliam, for £800.
Messrs. Elliott, Ellis and C׳\, last week, sold Whistley Down Cottage, Yelverton, South D'vod, for £1,110 and a field adjoining for £850. '
Messrs. Higgins and Son have recently sold the leasehold residences, Nos. 47, Grove-end-road ; 4, Melina-place ; 13, Hamilton-terrace ; 87, Alexander-road ; and 3, Springfield rr a 1.
Mr. Newman Chennells, of St. Leonard’s on-Sea, has sold the leasehold property, No. 33, Church-road, St. Leonard’s, recently offered for sale at the Mart.
M‘S<rs. Farebrother, Ellis and Co. have s !hi the Eltham Park Estât», Kent, comprishg about 334 acres, including an uld-fashioneu manor house. The property is suitable for development as a building estate.
Messrs. AVm. R. Nicholas and Co. have jnst disposed of the well-known freehold licensed premises in Reading, known as tbe Queen’s Hotel ; and the Allied Arms, 57, St. Mary’s Butts, adjoining, with five cottages in the iear.
Messrs. Protheroe and Morris have jnst sold, for £4,600, the freehold family residence known as the Oiks, Snaresbrook, with grounds of la. 2r. 22p. The property was to have been offeied at the Mart on May 26.
No?. 2 to 8, Waldegrave-gardens, Twickenham, have b״en sold since the auction on Monday, by M״. W. A. Blakemore, in conjunction with Mr. Ernest PenniDgton, for £3.510.
Messrs. Martin and Sanderson, of TonbrDge and Tunbridge Wells (ia conjunction with Messrs. W. Brackett and Sons, of Tunbridge Wells), have recently sold the freehold detached residence known as the Hollies, Park-road, Southborough, for £875.
Messrs. H. J. Bliss and Sons have sold by private tr aty the freehold ground rent of £91 10?. per annum secured upon Dr, Barnardo’s institution, the Ediuburgh Cistle and other property in St. Thomas’t-road, Stepney, for £10,000, which was not disposed of when offered at the Mart last week
Lady Holles’s Girls’ School, occupying a fine position at the end of Fore-street, City, and a branch of the City and Midland Bank has just been sold by Messrs. Felthacn, Woodrow and Co., of 22a, Finsbury Circus, to the London Courty Council for £31,000, as a site for a new fire station commanding the district where the -Cripphgate fire took place in 1897.
Messrs. Daniel Smith, Son and Oakley have sold the freehold sporting and residential estate known as Balcombe-place, near Hayward's Heath, comprising a large mansion and nearly 2,6C0 acres, with two entrance lodges, numerous farms, well-timbered woods and plantations and shooting rights over 2,465 acres ; Balcombe House with seven acres is included.
The Brockworth Estate, near Gloucester, comprising Will Close House and grounds, Brockworth Park, the Pound arid Well Close Farms, Coopir’s Hill House, Brockworth and Upton Woods, and numerous small holdings, the whole covering 727a. lr. 4p., has been sold by Messrs. Bruton, Knowles and Co., as agents for the London Samaritan Society, to Mr. J. Evans, of Hucelecote. We understand that the purchase money excreds £20,000.
QBaasioital Jtotes.
It is not often that a deputation to a Minister of State retires so well satisfied as that which a few days ago waited upon Mr. Long. The Midland Counties, the Yorkshire, the Lincolnshire and the Nottinghamshire Tenant-right Valuers’ Associations put before the Minister of Agriculture by means of their delegates, their views upon the suggested amendment of the Agricultural Holdings Act. The first, and, from the purely professional point of view, the most important representation.the deputation had to make was to protest against the idea that in any alterations that might be made Government arbitrators would be appointed. Mr. Long’s reply to this was not particularly clear, but we think we are justified from the context and the general tenour of his remarks, as reported in another column, in inferring that he, like his interlocutors, would prefer the question of arbitrators to be left just where it is. Most assuredly no earthly good could come out of any alteration, while it is only reasonable that the claims of experienced tenant-right valuers should be recognised.
Mr. Long was carelul not to commit himself to the if or the when of the amendment of the Act; but he was in almost entire agreement with the suggestions of the deputation. Briefly, these suggestions were (1) that not only should the fullest compensation be given to the tenant for continuous good farming, but also that proper protection should be given to the landlord where the tenant has been neglectful; (2) that the farmer should receive compensation for home grown corn consumed on his farm ;	(3) the simplification of the
formalities attendant upon the making of claims by tenants ; (4) lhat notices should, if possible, be abolished, but that if they must needs be retained they should he given by both sides at the same time and independently of each other ;	(5) any
future Act to embrace any good and well-defined custom of the country. Sir John Rolleston’s pointed remarks about this question becoming the plaything of inexperienced politicians make entertaining reading, and Mr. Long was not slow to follow the lead thus given. But are we to have this amending Act or not; and when ?
Mr. Andrew Carnegie is supposed to be expert upon the “ gospel of wealth,” and has had a good deal to say about “ triumphant democracy,” and we confess that we had hardly expected so much sound common-sense as was expressed by him on Wednesday. He has bought the Skibo Castle Estate in the Highlands and has this week taken possession of it. He appears lo have received a right royal welcome from the tenanls, crofters, and feurs of the property. Mr. Carnegie has been supposed to hold in contempt much that the proprietors of great landed estates hold dear ; but he seems to be mellowing with experience. That was, he said, his first experience of taking possession of a great residential property ; but “ when he saw the gathering of tenants at the gate he began to realise how a man could indeed feel that he possessed the hearts of his people upon it.” Mr. Carnegie, although a naturalised American, is a Scotchman by birth and we do not doubt that there is a feeling of Scottish clannishness between his tenants and himself. However that may be, it is gratifying enough to witness the pleasures and responsibilities of owning a great estate begin to have their effect upon the mind of a man of such force of character as Mr. Carnegie.
that only a limited number of titles could be examined in twelve months. Mr. Sanders suggests that the remedy might be found by the establishment of a system of registration, under which the transfer of land in large or small quantities might take place “ as rapidly and inexpensively as in the colonies and on the Continent.” He thinks that	the	system created by	the
Local Registration of Title Act of 1891, could be easily	developed to meet	the
requirements of the country. It is difficult to be very sanguine about these sweeping systems of registration ; tut there seems to be no valid reason why the experiment should not be made.
We desire in no way to belittle the interest of Mr. Sanders’s paper, when	we	say that we	attach	a
good	deal	of practical	importance
to the remarks which Mr. Robert Vigers, the President, made at the conclusion of the meeting. Mr. Vigers was a member of the Fry Commission, and he laid stress upon the two points that “ all sorts of means were taken by dishonest tenants to get their farms into a bad state before they went to the Court ” ; and that “ the gentlemen entrusted with the fixing of the rents were in every way incompetent.” The exposure of this latter state of things in the report of the Commission has always seamed to us to call for immediate action; yet there seems to be no likelihood of anything being done. It is also a highly unsatisfactory state of things that when landlord and tenant have agreed upon a price, the Court will not allow the purchase-money to be advanced, even when the landlord takes a wide margin, on the ground that the security is insufficient. Mr. Vigers put the matter cogently enough when he said that “ if the authorities allowed themselves to be advised by somebody who knew something about Ireland, they would not hesitate in granting the advances asked for.” He put the siatesmanlike view very clearly when he went on to point out that the land troubles of Ireland would continue so long as the authorities failed to facilitate the abolition of the dual interest. He made some remarks, which were not a whit too strong, about the mischievous action of those Members of Parliament who introduced Bills striking at the roots of freedom of contract in land matters. It will be a very bad day indeed for English land when either freedom of contract as between landlord and tenant is interfered with, or anything approaching a dual interest is set up.
the estate market.
Tie principal feature of the week at Tokenhouse-yard, has been the excellent demand for freehold ground rents, the most important of vihicb, one of £400 a year secured on the premises of the London Stereoscopic Company in Cheapside, with a reversion of about 18 years,realised £28,600. Other ground rents, which realised good prices, were comprised in the final portion of the estate of the late William Anger-stein, at Blaekheath and Greenwich. Building land in the same districts, and also forming part of the same estate, attracted considerable competition. Good prices were obtained for some old places in Fcurbert’s-place, Regent-street. Altogether a total of £174,021 was registered, as against £237,350 for the corresponding week last year. Among important sales in the piovinces may be mentioned the Mynthurst Estate, near Reigate, 1,183 acre״ ; the Brockworth Estate, near Gloucester, 727 acres, for over £20,000, and tbe Wooiton Court Estate in the same district, tor £29,000.