This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
ONE of Australia’s leading pastoral holdings, the historic Funny Hill, is going under the hammer after 162 years.
Located at 2360 Junction Road in Binda, NSW, around three hours out from Sydney and 133km from Canberra, the 3,877-hectare site has been held by one family since circa 1860.
Chris Meares from Meares & Associates is managing the sale of the asset via online auction, on behalf of the current owners James and Felicity Carr.
The well-managed site spans highly improved easterly aspect, scenic, pastured tablelands country with rich granite soils.
With the land comprising 920-hectares of high performance pasture and benefitting from being heavily top dressed each year since 1954 and from a reliable 763mm of rainfall on average each year.
On top of this, the site benefits from excellent water, with 9.8km of frontage to the Crookwell River, nine spring fed creeks and 63 dams.
The residential component of the asset includes a historic six-bedroom stone/brick homestead built circa 1874, with seven acres of award winning gardens and three additional cottages on site.
While improvements and outbuildings comprise a 1906-erected 16 stand woolshed, six sets cattle yards, sheep yards, machinery/haysheds and silos. This in addition to the site’s own two-way airstrip.
The sale will include the commercial Angus breeding herd, rated at 45,000DSE or 2,200 cows.
The small goldrush era village of Binda sits 19km north of Crookwell and currently includes little more than a church, the remnants of a pub, an old mill and general store.
The Funny Hill asset is known in the region as the site of the historic annual Binda Picnic Races, a country picnic race meet that held its first event in 1848 and is attended by more than 2000 people each year.
Funny Hill at 2360 Junction Road is scheduled for auction on 14 December 2022, via Meares Online.