History
Dakin Estates has over the past 20 years established an enviable reputation as one of the most experienced developers and historic building restorers in East Anglia with many projects in Suffolk, Cambridge, Huntingdonshire, and Norfolk under its belt.
Dakin Estates is the direct descendent of a limited company founded by Mr Anthony Dakin, a former director of Prowting Homes, who in the late 1960s once spotted a potential site from his seat in an airliner as it circled Heathrow and, once on the ground, managed to locate the land and buy it!
The company originally did site assembly for new housing in the Heathrow area and then moved into renovation of old buildings such as the conversion of The Market House at Uxbridge to shops and offices and the restoration of The White Hart at Colnbrook, near Heathrow and its conversion to office use.
In the early 1980s, in partnership with a local builder, the company set up an operation in East Anglia to build quality new homes, renovate historic houses and convert redundant farm buildings to houses. The first project, at Thorpe Morieux near Lavenham was converting a timber frame barn to three homes and re erecting a period timber frame, (imported from elsewhere), and building a new house around it.
The company then went onto convert The Mill and Maltings in High St, Cavendish in Suffolk to 13 flats and houses. Following this was the restoration and conversion to houses of Groton Place, Suffolk, a historic mansion with links to the early american colonies.
The next few years saw another multiple historic conversion project of a size rarely seen nowadays with the conversion of Onehouse Hall, near Stowmarket, and its many outbuildings to 9 houses. The moated hilltop site itself could trace its history back to being a hill fort owned by a follower of King Canute and a later visitor, Queen Elizabeth The First, planted an oak tree in the grounds the remains of which are still visible.
This was followed by many other projects including a large scheme at Great Barton, near Bury st Edmunds, involving the restoration a period farmhouse and it’s barns and stables as well as 10 new homes. Several of these , however, had very period interiors having been constructed around historic oak barn frames moved from elsewhere and re erected on site.
There have been many more historic building and new home projects since and there is little in the way of problems with converting historic buildings and building new homes that Dakin Estates hasn’t tackled over the last three decades.
Over the last three decades Dakin Estates have built numerous prestigious new homes as well as converting over one hundred agricultural buidings as well as mills, oasthouses and schools to residential use. That have also restored numerous mansions, farmhouses and cottages.
