A countryside and country-house estate agency founded in Towcester in 1910, now a network of offices across the UK with a central London presence.
Jackson-Stops is an estate agency known for country houses, farms and estates, as well as everyday homes. Its website describes specialist departments for new homes, country houses, equestrian properties, and farms and estates, plus a lettings and corporate services side that works with large companies and London relocation agencies. It reaches buyers through online listings, print, and its own magazine, and says agents share buyers across regions, so someone searching in one area can be matched with a property in another.
The company began in 1910 when Herbert Jackson-Stops opened an estate agency in Towcester, Northamptonshire, and held weekly livestock auctions in the town square. In 1918 he moved the business to Northampton and ran the 18-day sale of Stowe House and its contents, which Country Life later ranked as one of the two great sales of the twentieth century. He opened a Mayfair office in 1924. In 1992 the firm became a democratic consortium of members. Its website values "measured advice and long-term thinking, not short-term promises".
A 2021 article said the network had 42 branches and 26 members and planned 20 more offices over two years. In January 2025 chairman Nick Leeming said two new offices had opened in the previous six months, in Cheltenham and Oundle, and that he was keen to add offices along the M4 corridor between Windsor and Bristol. Offices named on the company site include Exeter, Dartmouth, Chipping Campden, Midhurst, Newmarket and Pimlico, with Cornwall and Cheshire also mentioned. We could not find a current total number of offices.
The firm works through a partnership approach: member agents invest in and run their own businesses under the Jackson-Stops brand, and each owner runs a geographic area. Head office provides marketing, PR, compliance, strategy, IT, finance and legal support. Mr Leeming described it in 2021 as combining independence with central resources, and in 2025 said the group works on opportunities, not targets. The site quotes several directors and partners, including one lettings director who had worked there for nine years, and says the company has clients who use it for decades. These are the company's own descriptions.
In the offices you will find valuers, negotiators, lettings and property managers, and specialists in country houses, farms and new homes. Several recently joined partners came from other well-known agencies, including Savills, Knight Frank and Strutt & Parker, so the firm clearly recruits experienced people too. Because the model is built on local owners, many jobs are in small teams rooted in a town or village. If you like the countryside, history, farming or historic houses, this is a company where those interests become a career. Look at the website for current openings.
Website: www.jackson-stops.co.uk
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