The Squire of Ravensworth is on the move. Park House, Sir Ian Botham’s 11 bedroom, Grade II-listed home near the North Yorkshire/Durham border, is on the market for £2.3m.

Described by estate agents Jackson-Stops as “an exceptional family house”, it includes a “superb” barn conversion, annexe, coach house and 10.9 acres of gardens, mature woodlands, lakes, paddocks and stabling.

Partly dating from the 17th century, the main house has a “golf room” and “spectacular” kitchen. The coach house has a gym.

The property has been on the market since June. A spokesman at Jackson-Stops’ York office said: “There has been some interest but the sellers aren’t at all keen on publicity.”

Images on the agency website suggest a quite splendid property, nonetheless. “It certainly is,” the gentleman confirms.

Just south of the A66, Ravensworth is a “much sought after” conservation village with a pub and a ruined castle. Sir Ian, English cricket’s greatest all-rounder, moved there with his family in the late 1980s and was soon afterwards dubbed “the Squire” by the Backtrack column.

Others just called him Beefy. Subsequently, of course, the Squire became the knight.

Park House has since played host to many familiar names from the world of sport, Sir Ian and Lady Kathy earning a reputation for their lavish hospitality. “The best barbecues ever,” says a former Durham County cricket club colleague.

The rural location – “a beautiful part of the world,” he said in 2013 – also perfectly suited his shooting and fishing lifestyle and day-long walks with the family dogs.

Sir Ian became a champion of shooters’ rights, though he insisted that if he could only have one hobby, it would be fishing. “Fly fishing is one of the most therapeutic things ever devised. I really do believe that,” he said.

In 1990, shortly after moving, he forewent overseas work to spend Christmas at his new home – and to play the Robber Baron in Jack and the Beanstalk in pantomime at Bradford. It wasn’t, he later admitted, his finest hour.

“The Great Man has become the little boy lost,” the column observed. “His delivery is as flat as a Jack Simmons arm ball.”

In 2004, however, the Bothams were shocked when burglars stole £70,000 worth of jewellery from Park House and seven years later offered a £5,000 reward after Woody, a 15-month-old sprocker spaniel, was apparently taken from a secure compound in the grounds.

Its charms notwithstanding, Ravensworth has also been subject to meteorological extremes. In December 2010 the local weather station recorded a temperature of minus 19.9 Celsius – the coldest place in Britain – and two years later counted 5.2 inches of rain in two days, making it the wettest.

Memory further suggests that the garden centre where the weather station is housed also took a recent fearful battering from the wind.

Not least due to broadcasting and charity commitments, however, Sir Ian has been seen infrequently around the village.

The great all-rounder played 102 test matches, scoring 5,200 runs and claiming 383 victims. It’s not known where next he intends to pitch wickets.