Dry Drayton Estate Limited.

Dry Drayton Estate was bought by the Peck family in 1950. Dr Irwin Peck and his family moved from Luton, in Bedfordshire, where he had been a G.P.

The farm at that time comprised of 750 acres, with sheep, beef and pigs. During the sixties, the pig herd was turned into the well know Dry Drayton herd of welsh Pigs were shown regularly at the Royal and Smithfield Shows. It became a hundred sow herd selling progeny all over the world. The beef unit was turned into barley beef, eventually into barley bull beef using barley and straw grown on the farm. The sheep herd was disbanded in the early sixties and all the land was put into combinable crops.

By 1978 the livestock units had all ceased, due to the economic climate, and the buildings were converted into 35 light industrial units in 1983. The twenty houses surrounding the farm were refurbished and then let as fully furnished cottages. In 2001 redundant farm buildings around the Farmhouse were converted into offices and let.

During the eighties, the company joined Cambridge Farmers Trading Co Ltd, a local farmer controlled co-operative. During the early part of 1990 a further 150 acres of land was bought locally in Dry Drayton.

It was decided, in 1991, to provide share farming agreements and during the next few years four local landowners asked for their land to be farmed, totalling a further 703 acres.

Dr Irwin Peck died in July 1995 and his son, Adrian, became Managing Director and his grandson, James, joined the farm after completing five years at Agricultural College finishing at Writtle college in Essex. Dry Drayton Estate is keen to expand the farming enterprise by share farming agreements, renting and contracting as the possibility of purchasing land in todays climate becomes less viable.

Adrian Peck has been actively involved in the NFU:
Member of Council 1995-2007
Director of Associa Ltd

Other organisations actively involved in:

P.G.R.O. Past Chairman
H.G.C.A. Research and Development Oilseed Committee since 1998
Cambridge Farmers Trading Company Ltd. Past Chairman
Atlas Agriculture Limited Past Chairman

The farm is contracted out to PX Farms Limited wholly owned and run by James Peck - http://www.pxfarms.com