Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, is buying a Suffolk estate for £45m — a record price for a British country home.

Maktoum, 59, has snapped up Dalham Hall, a grade II listed property near Newmarket once owned by Cecil Rhodes, the mining magnate and colonial adventurer. It comes with 3,300 acres of farmland, parkland and woods, as well as 39 houses and cottages.

It is thought he will not be actually moving to the estate and has purchased the property as part of an investment.

Maktoum already owns the neighbouring Dalham Hall stud, a 3,000-acre site from which he runs his global bloodstock empire and where he spends part of his time.

By combining the estate with the stud, Maktoum will become one of Britain’s biggest foreign-born landowners.

However substantial, his holdings are still a fraction of those of aristocratic landowners such as the Dukes of Northumberland and Westminster who both hold more than 100,000 acres, or the Duke of Buccleuth & Queensbury, who has at least 250,000 acres.

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