Fyning Hill

Fyning Hill is a large estate near the village of Rogate in West Sussex. It has been owned by several prominent people.

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 totaled 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]

The estate was included as part of the divorce settlement between Abramovich and his second wife. The size of the estate was listed as 420 acres in 2017.[10]

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 (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 (62427). p. 31. Retrieved 21 March 2018 – via The Times Digital Archive.
  8. "Smart moves". The Times (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. "Roman Abramovich to split from third wife". The Times. 17 August 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2018.

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