Baronet Ben’s selling his £30m home . . . on Facebook!

He once advertised for a younger wife to provide him with two sons. Having seemingly failed in his quest to sire an heir, the flamboyant bachelor baronet Sir Benjamin Slade has now put his West country pile, Maunsel House, on the market — for an eye-watering £30 million.

The 13th- century manor house, which has 17 bedrooms and 16 bathrooms, and 1,300 acres of land with eight cottages has not been entrusted to a traditional estate agent but is, instead, up for grabs on Facebook Marketplace.

Sir Benjamin, 74, explains the decision to put Maunsel House on the market followed a chat with a visitor from London.

He says: ‘Somebody came and said: “We can sell this for 20 or 30 million, no problem at all. We’ve got Arab clients, Russian clients, chinese clients in London — they just love this sort of thing, just the house and the park.” ’

Sir Ben admits that he was pleasantly startled by the price-tag.

‘Pigs might fly but you never know. I did sell 100 acres last year right at the other end of the estate, through Savills, and I got about a million and a half for that.’

Maunsel is currently available for rent at £20,000-a-month. ‘I haven’t earned anything in the last 18 months as a result of covid and lockdown and restrictions,’ he explains. ‘People were booked in to have their weddings but they got postponed.’

Slade was ordered to pay £150,000 in damages in 2019 to two women forced out of their jobs because they were pregnant, but he is still fighting the case. ‘I’m not giving up. I’ve spent £53,000 on the appeal so far. We’re going to carry on.’

The property broker handling the sale is Murtaza Haidermota, 36, who is based in Holland Park, London.

Haidermota explains that Slade was ‘very welcoming’ when he visited the Somerset estate. ‘He showed us all over the house, the land, everything.’

There have been inquiries from Middle eastern clients as well as some UK hoteliers.

But my property mole suggests Maunsel may now become a private residence — for a British buyer.

‘There are people who are extremely hungry for that amount of land,’ he tells me.