b'carried out our inspection accompanied by the vendorspecial projects on a number of exciting developmentsprofessional valuation, agricultural and woodland sales, and we were then invited to stay for lunch and wereincluding the conversion of Lutyens farm buildings atas well as middle to top end residential sales has allowed provided with a big bowl of soup and bread as a way ofCross Farm Shackleford, and the redevelopment of theus to survive these tough times, and after 100 years I thanks for coming to spend time looking at his houseHambledon Park in Wormley, as well as many otheram immensely proud to be involved with this highly and giving our professional advice on the value. Howlocal development sites.regarded independent and professional agency, and hope times have changed!that the Clarke dynasty would be proud that the name This continued throughout the early 2000s until As time moved on, I became a strong advocate onthe banking recession in 2007 led to house buildersstill remains synonymous with the traditional ethics of moving to find a ground floor premise with a properstopping construction. A halt in construction forced theprofessional Estate Agency and Chartered Surveying and shop window and expanding the business into otherfirm to have to diversify into such areas as professionalAuctioneering, and that the clients and contacts we have local towns, so as to broaden our sphere of operationvaluation work , auctioneering, agricultural andadvised and helped across the years still recommend us and utilising our contacts. This led to us opening ourequestrian land and planning advice for longer termfor work, for which we are very grateful.second office in Godalming in 1998, and our third officestrategic projects, all of which remain an important partThe firm was very instrumental in the formation of in the pretty Surrey village of Shere in 1999.of the business today and form a significant part of thethe West Surrey Association. The early chairmen were firms income.Messrs. Trent senior and Brian Clarke, and I have also We moved across to our current premises at 4 Quarry Street in 2000 and eventually combining with theThe industry has changed significantly with statisticsbeen Chairman on two separate occasions.agricultural and rural land agents, Wellers, andrevealing that in 2007 there were 1.81 million property becoming Clarke Gammon Wellers. I became a partnertransactions undertaken in the UK and 3,500 businesses in 1998 when Brian Clarke retired, and became seniorinvolved in estate agency at an average fee of 1.5%. partner in 2004 upon the retirement of Michael Trent.Compared to in 2018 there were 885,000 properties sold in the UK with 12,500 businesses involved in agency at With the rise of new homes and residential an average fee of 1%, so one can see how the economics developments in the late 1990s, we decided that we have changed.wanted to work in this sector and to provide a Land and New Homes service to our clients. We startedThe ability for the firm to be able to diversify and offer working with new homes providers in the immediatea variety of alternative services and still specialise in area, working especially closely with Berkeley Homes onplanning and development, land and new homes,The West Surrey Association'