Towie is a fine estate in its own right featuring a site with potential for creating a principal house, a driven grouse moor capable of improvement, an established and renowned high bird driven pheasant shoot, some commercial and amenity woodland and a let farm providing useful rental income.

Houses, Cottages and Buildings The estate includes properties include:

Sinnaboth Farmhouse and Steading There is no principal house serving the Towie Estate. However, there is a redundant farmhouse and adjacent derelict steading occupying a peaceful and elevated setting with views over the River Don at the northern edge of the estate.

Whilst there is no planning permission at present for this site, it has considerable potential for the construction of a new house/lodge to serve as the principal property for Towie Estate. The vendor has previously commissioned architect’s plans for a prospective renovation which can be made available on request to the selling agents. Interested parties are encouraged to conduct their own due diligence with Aberdeenshire Council planning department and engage with an independent firm of architects with regard to the construction possibilities.

Chapel of Towie Farmhouse and Buildings This is a traditional stone-built, two-storey house with a pitched slate roof. The accommodation comprises a sitting room, kitchen, three bedrooms and bathroom. Situated on a grassy hillside with magnificent views, the house has a garden to the front. Access to the house is by way of a track which leads for approximately 200 metres from the minor public road.

Behind the house is a traditional U-shaped steading. Constructed of stone under a pitched slate roof the steading provides useful storage. There is a set of kennels and a general purpose shed.

Sportings

Towie Pheasant Shoot With advice from the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, the owner has developed a spectacular and much admired pheasant shoot at Towie. The natural contours and topography, along with strategically planted woodland coverts, enable pheasants of the highest quality to be shown. As a result of these factors, together with the professional way in which the shoot has been managed by the owner and his gamekeeping team, the Towie pheasant shoot has forged an outstanding reputation throughout the UK.

A head gamekeeper and an underkeeper are employed to produce between 15 and 20 driven days per season to include some let days along with those enjoyed by the owner.

It has been the custom in recent years to release around 6,000 pheasant poults per season with an average return of about 40% on the pheasants released.

There is a flight pond for duck in the wood at Haughton.

At the northern end of this lot beside the public road is the Mill of Towie shoot room where guns can gather at the start of day’s shooting and have both lunch and tea. The shoot room is an imaginatively converted L-shaped former farm steading which has a kitchen, a large dining room and sitting area, and two WCs. It currently displays an eclectic collection of sporting art and ephemera.

Towie Grouse Moor The Towie grouse moor is a gently undulating one day moor, with six lines of butts providing up to eight drives. The moor has a useful network of tracks, which enables the gamekeepers to gain vehicular access for heather burning, vermin control, grit distribution, maintenance of butts and also access for guns, beaters, flankers and pickers-up on shoot days.

The names of the grouse drives and the directions in which they are customarily driven are shown on the sale plan.

There is a lunch hut accessible from two directions in a particularly scenic position beside the Socach Burn.

Farming There is no in-hand farmland within Towie Estate. Most of the farmland in lot 5 is farmed by a single tenant on a holding known as Haughton and Mill of Culfork Farm which lies within this lot.

Having been let under a secure agricultural tenancy agreement, the result of pre-sale negotiations is that Haughton and Mill of Culfork Farm will be re-let to the same farming family under a LDT for a 10-year term commencing 28 November 2016. The subjects included in the lease are summarised as follows:

Haughton Haughton Farmhouse is located along a private track from the minor public road that leads through Milltown of Towie. The farmhouse is a traditional two-storey harled stone-built house with a pitched slated roof. The accommodation comprises sitting room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms and a bathroom.

Behind the farmhouse, there is a useful range of farm buildings. These include a steel portal framed general purpose shed, and a traditional steading.

Mill of Culfork The farmhouse is a traditional stone-built, two-storey house with a slate roof and accommodation which includes a sitting room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, and bathroom. Close to the farmhouse is a Bothy customarily used as a beaters meeting point and lunch room during the pheasant shooting season.

There are two large general purpose sheds, both of which are steel portal framed with profile sheeting roofs. One of these sheds serves as a cattle court during the winter months, while the other is used for a combination of cattle accommodation and storage of feed, machinery and equipment.

There is another general purpose shed, presently used as a machinery store.

In addition, there is a steel span lambing shed with corrugated iron cladding and roof.

Further to this, there is a silage clamp, cattle handling facilities and game feed storage at Mill of Culfork.

Culfork Farmhouse and Steading Occupying an elevated setting, this is a derelict farmhouse and steading. There are no services and access is via a track passable by 4-wheel drive vehicles only.

With regard to the grazing of Towie grouse moor, as part of the pre-sale negotiations, the tenant is obliged to farm the moor in accordance with best practice grouse moor management, to include a restriction on the number of sheep which may be grazed and a commitment to undertake an appropriate dipping regime and regular application of acaricides for the control of ticks.

Sinnaboth Land There is an area of pasture and rough grazings at Sinnaboth extending to about 90 acres in total. Following pre-sale negotiations, this land will be let to a local farmer under a Short Limited Duration Tenancy (SLDT) until 28 November 2017 at a peppercorn rent.

Forestry and Woods The woods on the Towie Estate are primarily planted and sited for shooting and extend to 503 acres. They comprise mainly 40-50 years old conifers and some new woods planted within the last 20 years. On the southeastern edge of the grouse moor is an enclosed area of native woodland regeneration called Pressendye which was established under the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) and extends to about 213 acres.

This property has 3261 acres of land.