One of the most historic riverfront properties of the Forbes district, The Angle, has been sold privately to become a water-secure extension of a family-owned high-country grazing operation.
Comprising 470 hectares including 141ha of developed irrigation, The Angle fronts the Lachlan River for 15 kilometres at Warroo. Now owned by Marg Farthing, the property was originally listed for sale by Ainslie Toole of Nutrien Harcourts Forbes last November, but harvest and Christmas intervened and the marketing was put on hold.
Ms Toole had been preparing to re-advertised the property for autumn auction when an offer was lobbed in that the vendor - as they say in the trade - 'couldn't refuse'. No price has been disclosed but the agent's price guide was in a range from $8-$10 million.
The buyers are John and Denise Brien of The Retreat at Oberon, who already own Yarrangong North and Montana in the Forbes district as well as Middle Creek and Arrow Grove at Oberon. Family representative Zac Rowlandson said The Angle had appealed because it added an irrigation dimension to their existing dryland operation, giving added security for livestock finishing and fodder.
The property comes with a 668-megalitre river licence and a 521ML bore licence and has a long history of lucerne production as well as cotton, canola and other cash crops.
As such, it will be a valuable addition to the Briens' present pastoral operation which now turns off 10,000-plus first- and second-cross lambs alongside an 1800-head cattle breeding and trading enterprise.
Marg Farthing and her late husband Max, who died in 2016 at just 63, bought The Angle in 2004 through the same agent when it was a property of 227ha, later adding the adjoining Colai of 243ha to make up the present parcel.
Previously The Angle had been held since early settlement by successive generations of the Lee and MacPhillamy families, for the last half-century by the late Peter MacPhillamy and his wife Barbara (nee Lee).
Peter MacPhillamy in his heyday was a well-known agri-political firebrand, penning terse letters to The Land about water and other subjects close to his heart. For many years The Angle formed part of the vast Warroo run of Charles Marsden MacPhillamy.
It was managed and expanded by his son C.S. MacPhillamy. On C.S. MacPhillamy's watch Warroo encompassed some 40,000ha stretching from the Lachlan almost to Lake Cowal and turning off at its peak an annual woolclip of 1000 bales.
After his death in 1935 the property was divided among his children and much of it sold off, but choice morsels - including The Angle - remained in family hands.
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