ONE of Cheshire’s grandest country homes, valued at £4m, has been sold to a private individual.

Savills of Chester confirmed that Hockenhull Hall which includes a Georgian Grade II listed building with formal gardens, farm buildings and flats located on 206 acres of land, was sold last month.

The impressive country pile, which also boasts views across Bickerton hills and North Wales, had been the home and working farm of the Arnold family for sixty years.

It was placed on the housing market about 12 months ago after father-of-three Vere Hugo Cholmondeley Arnold, then aged 80, was forced to sell up as his non-farming sons could not continue his work.

The family were concerned prior to the sale that any future buyer would keep Hockenhull Hall, built in the 1720s, in its current form.

A spokesman for Savills would not reveal the final selling price of the property, outbuildings and attached land but he insisted that any locally-held fears that Hockenhull Hall’s history would not be preserved would be allayed.

He said: “The private individual will preserve it as a very elegant country property.”

Prior to the sale, Tony Morris-Eyton, of Savills, said that whoever the buyer was, Hockenhull Hall, also home to award-winning cattle, was a unique and very rare opportunity.

He said: “It is a very special house and coupled with the land, this sort of property just does not come on the market in Cheshire.

“We hope the new custodians will treat the property in the same manner as the Arnold family has done. It is one of the most important buildings in the county.”