A total of 175 lots across southern England has been unveiled by Clive Emson Auctioneers for the firm’s milestone 250th auction this month.

They include a cliffside chalet-style bungalow which featured in TV’s Poldark, the historical Cornish mining drama series. With breathtaking views, the property overlooks Porthcurno beach and the famous Minack open air theatre; the residence is at St Levan, near Penzance, Cornwall, and has a guide price of £395,000-plus.

There have been more than £3 billion in sales for clients since the firm’s first auction 35 years ago. The regional land and property auctioneering firm was founded in October 1989 by now-chairman Clive Emson.
 
James Emson, now managing director, says: “It is difficult to convey how proud we all of are of what has been achieved since my father set up the business in October 1989, with the first auction in December that year listing 24 lots and members of the family posting stapled auction catalogues through letterboxes, complementing marketing campaigns over the phone in the pre-internet age.
 
“Over the years we expanded from our Kent headquarters in Maidstone and have five offices covering southern England, from Kent, London, Essex and Norfolk to Cornwall and the Isle of Wight and well above the M4 corridor.”

Since 1989 the firm has sold tens of thousands of lots including houses, flats, shops, offices, warehouses, factories, garages, barns, underground bunkers, sea forts, water towers, colliery buildings, pubs, hotels, former places of worship, woodland and development and grazing land.
 
Two years ago, the company set a new record with the highest price achieved outside of London in an online auction – a commercial lot in Purfleet, Grays, Essex, sold for £5.4m in a bidding war; the client was a local authority.
 
The latest auction – the fourth of eight this year – ends on June 12, with bidding live from 10 June.
 
Of the 175 lots listed, 75 are vacant residential, 35 residential investment, 31 commercial property, 19 development/conversion land 15 grazing/land.
 
With a guide price of £800,000-plus, a terraced five-storey building with offices overlooking the harbour and sea in Torquay, Devon, has planning consent for conversion into 12 apartments; meanwhile a former doctors’ surgery in the fishing village of Emsworth, near Portsmouth, with planning permission for redevelopment into a hotel and café, has a guide price of £895,000-plus; and a 1.71-acre development site near Helston, Cornwall, with the sandy beach of Praa Sands 2.5 miles away, has planning permission for 14 dwellings. Guide price: £485,000-plus.