Overview

The Lees Court Estate, during the early 1900’s, was 85,000 acres. Today the Estate is 6,900 acres with a core of 2,663 acres around the villages of Sheldwich and Badlesmere with the balance at The Swale Estuary, Oare and Faversham Creeks.
The Estate includes three principal traditional let farms and about 550 acres of woodland. There is also a large in-hand farm. There are about 20 houses on the Estate, occupied by current and retired employees, residential and agricultural tenants as well as over 100 other buildings.
Most income comes from the usual ways expected from a traditional rural estate, including farm and residential rents, sporting income and other miscellaneous sources. There is some income derived from timber sales although in recent years this has been exceeded by investment in planting new trees and maintaining approximately 250,000 trees replanted as a result of the 1987 hurricane.
Lees Court Estate is managed in a way that respects the local community and Church, acknowledging that it provides important jobs and homes for many families and above all ensuring that this way of life is able to continue.
Lees Court has grown a range of Non Food Crops and is looking at further ways of adding value by way of a vertical integration strategy through Seeds LP, the entity that has been set up to oversee its commercialisation.
Lees Court Farm is the in-hand farm for Lees Court Estate.