Leverhulme Estate
In the north west of England, Leverhulme Farms is rethinking what estate farming can be – bringing together regenerative crops, heritage skills and rural enterprise on 700 hectares of working Wirral landscape.
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About Leverhulme
Leverhulme has a number of established farms across the country. Much of their land in Wirral is farmed by second-generation farming families, many of whom have diversified over the years.
Leverhulme Farms sits at the meeting point of past and future – an estate with deep historical roots and bold ambitions for what farming can be. Spread across 700 hectares on the Wirral, the farm is part of a wider estate shaped by the vision of the 1st Viscount Leverhulme, whose belief in place, purpose and community still underpins all the estate does today.
A recent addition to the estate’s directly managed activity, Leverhulme Farms marked a major milestone with its first ‘in-house’ harvest just last year. Since then, things have been growing quickly. With a firm focus on sustainable arable production, the farm is building a resilient rotation including wheat, barley, spring beans and oilseed rape, while also gradually introducing heritage and regenerative crops such as WildFarmed wheat.
Livestock have also made a return, with cattle and sheep now part of the mix – helping to diversify the system and bring fertility back to the soil. Comprehensive soil sampling is in place, alongside hay meadows and wild areas, aiming to put biodiversity on an equal footing with yield.
But Leverhulme isn’t just about farming the land. A growing cluster of creative, sustainable businesses now call the estate home, including a pub, market gardener, brewery, café, candle maker and pilates studio. And there’s space for more: with underused woodlands, farmland, old farm buildings and raw materials waiting to be reimagined by new ideas and enterprises.
With its unique location bridging countryside and city – Liverpool to one side, open farmland to the other – Leverhulme Farms offers the opportunity to bring together rural enterprise, creative collaboration and regenerative thinking. This is estate farming with the gates open: to people, ideas and possibilities.
“We’re new to this and just beginning our journey to create regenerative, resilient systems that bring people back to the land, build circular economies, and support thriving communities. We’re now looking for others to collaborate with and help drive this vision forward for People, Planet, and Prosperity and we’re really excited by how Pitch Up! can support this.”– Tom O’Leary
Who?
The estate office is made up of a young and growing team that’s recently been brought in-house, so the future is now firmly in our hands!. We handle everything from accounts to building repairs. While we’re not farmers ourselves, we’re fully aware of the learning curve and are keen to collaborate with others to unlock the full potential of the land.
The team is led by Tom, who oversees the farms with support from others on the ground. The goal is that, once a few key elements are in place, we’ll see a domino effect, turning raw materials into exciting, locally-driven and circular opportunities.
Both Tom and Georgia lead on land use across the estate, bringing backgrounds in rural surveying and land management to guide the way forward.