Two Grade II-listed farms near Guilsfield are to be sold by Powys Council in a deal which could net the authority up to £650,000.

Council leader Rosemarie Harris has today sealed a decision to sell Garth and Heylin, which were built in about 1850 and had been intended to be used as model farms specialising in traditional farming methods.

The details of the sale will remain confidential, but the combined properties had been on the market for a total of £650,000, according to property website Zoopla.

The site also shows that the two separate tenanted farms have become "surplus to the requirements of Powys County Council's farms estate".

The farms are just off the A490, and were advertised for sale until very recently.

Powys Council's own website describes the farms as a “substantial range of Grade II listed buildings, two houses, woodland and paddocks.”

They had been split into three lots, with the council recommending a sale price of £345,000 for Garth farmhouse and its associated farm buildings, woodland and paddocks of around 10 acres.

Heylin Farmhouse and just under two acres of paddocks had a guide price of £249,000.

And the walled garden, woodland and paddocks extending to over six acres had been priced at £45,000.

Under council rules the decision will not come into force for five days unless it it called in for scrutiny.

The buildings were listed in 1995 because they are of architectural and historic interest due to its association to  J.C Loudon, an important figure in the design of farm buildings in the early nineteenth century.

He had designed a house, stables and kennels for the Mytton family of Garth, for whom the farms were created. The house and stables were demolished in the 1940s with the kennels surviving.