Property of the week
A handy-sized property just listed for sale on the Upper Namoi combines heritage lifestyle features and proven production capabilities as a grazing and irrigation concern.
“East Hills” is a 479 hectare (1184ac) property fronting the Namoi River 19 kilometres north-east of Manilla, not far from the well-known “Dunmore”, once owned by entrepreneur Harry M. Miller.
It is just 63km from Tamworth, making it an ideal working-farm base for a family with business or professional interests in the regional city.
At one time part of the vast holdings north of Tamworth of the pioneering Park family (as was “Dunmore”), “East Hills” is owned today by Wayne and Glenda Keel, who are selling up to retire. They have listed the property for private sale with Purtle Plevey Agencies of Manilla at an asking price of $2m.
The Keels bought the property in 2000 from Bill Randall and his wife Cheryl (the latter at the time Mayor of Manilla, before Manilla Shire was subsumed into Tamworth Regional Council in 2004).
They manage the property mainly as a beef cattle breeding operation, running 120 cows and up to 150 in favourable seasons, in conjunction with lucerne for hay on the 20ha of irrigated river flats.
The country is described as level to slightly undulating, with soils predominantly red basalt apart from the alluvial loams fronting the river. A key feature of the property is its 1.5km deep-water frontage to the Namoi River, to which there is a 102 megalitre unregulated licence to underpin irrigation and stock water requirements.
Recently renewed 150mm underground mains service the irrigated flats, while stock water is pumped to two 90,000-litre header tanks from where it gravitates to 11 troughs.
The homestead is a handsome, double-brick Federation structure of three bedrooms, built early last century for the Park family and retaining period features.
The homestead is set in established gardens with a swimming pool and comes with an attached two-bedroom granny flat.
