Fyning Hill

Fyning Hill is a large estate near the village of Rogate in West Sussex. It has been owned by several prominent people including Kerry Packer and Roman Abramovich.

History

The main house contains 8 bedrooms with 5 reception rooms.[1] It was owned by Sir Albert Braithwaite until his death in 1959.[2] The estate was owned in the 1970s and 1980s by the Jordanian businessman Taj Hajjar, who was a friend of King Hussein of Jordan.

The biggest ever robbery in Sussex occurred on the property in May 1983 when £800,000 of jewellery was stolen. Hajjar put up an £80,000 reward, but no thief was ever apprehended.[3]

Hajjar sold the estate to the Australian publisher and broadcaster Kerry Packer for $5 million in May 1989. Packer built the headquarters for his polo team at Fyning Hill, and would arrive at the estate in May for the three-month English polo season.[4][5] Packer subsequently bought the nearby Great House Farm for £580,000 in June 1989, and had acquired 600 acres of nearby countryside by June 1990.[6][7] Packer's daughter, Gretel, was married on the estate in 1991.

The estate totalled 424 acres with five houses and nine cottages by September 1999 when Packer put the estate up for sale.[8] The estate was bought by the Russian businessman Roman Abramovich in 1999 for £12 million.[9]

Fyning Hill was included as part of the divorce settlement between Abramovich and his second wife, Irina Malandina, in 2007.[10][11] The estate was valued at £18 million at the time.[11]

The size of the estate was listed as 420 acres in 2017.[12]

References
  1. Mike Donaldson; Scott Poynting (2007). Ruling Class Men: Money, Sex, Power. Peter Lang. p. 129. ISBN 978-3-03911-137-4.
  2. The Estates Gazette. July 1959. p. 22.
  3. "Chelsea billionaire's Sussex hideaway". The Argus. 5 July 2003. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  4. Horace A. Laffaye (28 August 2015). Profiles in Polo: The Players Who Changed the Game. McFarland. p. 191. ISBN 978-1-4766-6273-2.
  5. Horace A. Laffaye (29 May 2009). The Evolution of Polo. McFarland. p. 229. ISBN 978-0-7864-5415-0.
  6. Hamilton, Alan (22 June 1989). "Times Diary". The Times. No. 62427. p. 14. Retrieved 21 March 2018 – via The Times Digital Archive.
  7. Bellamy, Rex (28 August 1990). "Village has taste of future it fears". The Times. No. 62427. p. 31. Retrieved 21 March 2018 – via The Times Digital Archive.
  8. "Smart moves". The Times. No. 62427. 8 September 1989. p. 21. Retrieved 21 March 2018 – via The Times Digital Archive.
  9. Stephen Armstrong (15 April 2010). The Super-Rich Shall Inherit the Earth: The New Global Oligarachs and How They're Taking Over our World. Little, Brown Book Group. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-84901-441-0.
  10. Donnelly, Luke (1 March 2022). "Fyning Hill: The £18m South Downs estate once owned by Chelsea's Roman Abramovich". Sussex Live. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
  11. Gadher, Dipesh (12 June 2022). "Abramovich 'handed millions to his children before sanctions hit'". The Times. Archived from the original on 11 June 2022. Retrieved 16 June 2022. They divorced after 16 years, with Malandina reportedly negotiating a £155 million settlement. As part of the deal, she was given the £18 million Fyning Hill estate in West Sussex.
  12. "Roman Abramovich to split from third wife". The Times. 17 August 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2018.

51.01927°N 0.84270°W / 51.01927; -0.84270

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