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We own over 9,000 hectares across 6 counties. This includes an upland farm in Cumbria that is managed in-hand, our Little Dalby Estate in Melton Mowbray, the Hartwell Estate outside Aylesbury, our 4 Home Estates across West Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, the Slimbridge Estate near the Severn estuary and our Trent Estate in Dorset. To dig a little deeper, check out our map further up the page.

An interesting and fairly unknown man, Ernest Cook was one of the great philanthropists of his generation – especially in the rural and farming sectors. As the grandson of Thomas Cook (of travel fame) he had great wealth, which he chose to commit to helping preserve a rural way of life. To protect this mission, he set up the Trust in 1952 and our mission across land and learning has grown from there.

90% of our land is managed by our brilliant tenant farmers, and we are proud to collaborate with them on the future of our estates. We run some of our farms “in hand” and we manage the woodlands and rivers across our land with our specialist rangers and outdoor caretaker

Our learning sites are open for pre-arranged sessions with schools and community organisations, but for health & safety reasons we don’t currently allow free access to our learning sites or land. Much of our land is farmed and so access is limited to public footpaths and rights of way.

All our grant streams can be found on our grants page – they are not open all year round, and we have clear eligibility criteria. All of this is detailed in the application process and if you have any other questions you can contact the grants team (grants@ernestcooktrust.org.uk)

We aren’t accepting new applications to our current schemes but if you would like more information please reach out to the relevant team – we are always happy to share impact reports and discuss future partnerships.

Subscribe to our seasonal newsletter and you’ll get an update on our work every Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We also share our latest learnings and stories of impact on our About Us page.

We share updates on developments on our land as early and as openly as possible, but because we work with partners, district councils and within national schemes we are sometimes limited in what we can share. You will find information on our Properties and Landscapes pages, or if you have a specific enquiry you can reach out to our estates team (estates@ernestcooktrust.org.uk).