Radio star Kate Ritchie buys Fallow Field, Burradoo

Radio star Kate Ritchie and her husband, the former NRL player Stuart Webb, have bought a Southern Highlands retreat for weekends away from their coastal eastern suburbs home.

They paid $1.75 million for Fallow Field, located in Burradoo's exclusive Golden Triangle.

The rambling farmhouse had been in the Tinkler family ownership for 50 years.

Set down a private, tree lined driveway, it has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a formal lounge and a large mud room. Not that it is a farm, rather a sprawling 0.6 hectare garden estate.

There the main residence plus an 1800s built, 170 sqm carriage house with an 85 sqm upstairs hayloft complete with exposed timber beams and original hardwood flooring.

The lifestyle property spent over 300 days on market before the selling agents Ben Olofsen and Scarlett Laplanche of McKillop Property secured the recent sale.

They had a price guide of $1.75 million to $1.87 million.

She joins other thespians in the Highlands perhaps bumping into Robyn Nevin, Judy Davis and Noeline Brown.

Kate, who has spent decades portraying Sally Fletcher in Home & Away, kicked off her interest in portfolio when she bought a two bedroom Bellevue Hill unit for $355,000 in 2000. It is currently up for rent at $400 a week asking rental.

The two time Gold Logie award winning actress then bought her three bedroom Randwick home that cost $990,000 in 2003.

Prior to her extended retirement from Home and Away in 2008, Ritchie shared the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous role in an Australian drama series with fellow original cast members Ray Meagre and Norman Coburn.

She returned to the show in 2013 for two months, reprising her role as Sally Fletcher in the show's 25th anniversary year.

Ritchie appeared in the second series of Underbelly, her first TV drama role since leaving the popular Palm Beach programme.

She currently co-hosts Kate, Tim & Marty, the number one rating national drive show, on Nova.

Ritchie married Webb, the former Roosters, Rabbitohs and Dragons hooker in 2010 in a countryside outdoor wedding at Quamby Estate in Tasmania.

The couple have a two year old daughter, Mae, who was the inspiration behind her new children's book 'I Just Couldn't Wait to Meet You, which was released earlier this year.

This article was first published in the Saturday Daily Telegraph.