GREER’S LEAVING LETTER

This year International Women’s Day gained huge publicity in the wake of the global #MeToo movement, which followed revelations about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s and other celebrities’ treatment of women.

One unlikely critic of the movement was academic and feminist Germaine Greer, who said during an interview with an Australian newspaper how, in some circumstances, women shouldn’t “whinge” later if they agreed to “be nice” to someone to get a job. “I’m afraid that’s tantamount to consent,” she said.

Unsurprisingly, her comments didn’t go down well with #MeToo supporters. But neither did it surprise them.

Greer, whose 1970 book The Female Eunuch brought her global fame, is well known for having contrary views on many subjects. And that includes selling property.

Since the late 1980s the 79-year-old has lived in an idyllic rural pile near Saffron Walden in Essex which she recently put on the market describing it as “this strip of chalk and rubble”.

Greer has penned a wordy love letter to whoever buys her four-bedroom house, which comes with a separate studio and cottage, 3.6 acres of wild woodland, a goose pond, apple orchard, walled kitchen gardens, and both pollarded sycamores and lime trees.

Within the letter, which was published in a national newspaper, Greer details her approach to managing the property’s flora and fauna including polecats, plums and ragwort, and the famous friends who have helped her develop it, including star garden designer Beth Chatto.

Originally housing two smock mills and probably built during the 1820s, the property is for sale via Savills (01223 347261) for £1.25m.

Germaine Greer