A HEREFORD cider tycoon is set to leave his Scottish estate and millionaires are said to be queuing up to buy it.

Jonathan Bulmer has spent nearly 10 years on Amhuinnsuidhe (pronounced Aven-suey) estate on the Hebridean island of Harris.

He bought the 50,000-acre mountainous estate for £3.5m in 1994, as a split family home and business.

Celebrities including Michael Jackson, Madonna and Sting are touted as being potential buyers for the palatial pad, which has a price tag of £4.5m.

But 58-year-old Mr Bulmer, a former London socialite, is said to be sympathetic in the call for the land being returned to the people who run it.

In a report in The Observer, he said the community of 800 could follow in the footsteps of islanders on Eigg and Gigha, who bought out their previous owners.

"One problem sporting estates have is continuity, and that is something community ownership can offer," he is reported as saying.

"A community bid will get sympathetic treatment."

Half of the baronial castle on the island became a family home when Mr Bulmer moved in with his wife and children in 1994. Guests paid up to £17,000 a week to take over the other half for a week's fishing.

The decision to sell came after Mr Bulmer's marriage broke down four years ago.

His wife, Lady Marcia Leveson-Gower moved on to a neighbouring island.

He has not spoken of the incident, but said he was selling for family reasons.

"It used to be a family home and it isn't any more," he told The Observer.

"I will be jolly sad to go, but I have done everything I can to put it on a viable footing."