A 2,000-ACRE Dorset estate went on sale with a price tag of about £15 million today.

Encombe, near Kimmeridge, is on the market for the first time in 200 years after the trustees of the estate decided to sell.

It is expected to attract the interest of pop idols and foreign millionaires who will have to buy the entire estate and keep it intact.

Madonna recently bought Ashcombe House, the £9 million former home of Cecil Beaton, on the Dorset-Wiltshire border.

The property has two-and-a-half miles of coastline designated as a World Heritage Site, and a Grade II listed 18th Century mansion.

Other aspects include 12 further estate houses, high pheasant and partridge shoots and listed follies.

The main property, Encombe House, which is in a secluded valley, was remodelled and extended by Wareham MP John Pitt when he inherited the estate in 1735. The south-facing frontage was completed in 1770.

The Encombe Valley opens on to the sea between Kimmeridge and Chapman's Pool.

The whole site is to be sold as one unit and cannot be split up.

Rupert Sebag-Montefiore, a trustee of the estate and managing director of FPD Savills, agents for the sale, said: "Encombe is, without doubt, one of the finest estates to come to the market in many years.

"It is rare for a traditional family estate with a house and location of this calibre to come to the market _ and we expect intense market interest."