An independent estate agency with 175 staff working across the South of England has begun celebrating an astonishing milestone – 200 years in continuous business.

Henry Adams, which can trace its history back to 1826 beginning in the upmarket town of Chichester, is a multi-disciplinary firm working across a range of sectors including property sales, lettings, commercial property, planning, land and development, holiday cottages and auctions.

Wyatt & Son of Chichester

The company started as Wyatt & Son and at first helped sell livestock including pigs when Chichester had a lively town market supplied by local farmers. Founder Edward Wyatt, who was himself a farmer, later moved into agricultural valuations, auctioneering and surveying.

For Wyatt & Son the journey towards a new name started after chartered surveyor and auctioneer Henry Adams joined the firm in 1952.

He later became a senior partner in the business which he ran as a partnership with Simon Lush until 1990 including a brief connection to the Prudential’s property arm during the 1980s, although the pair renamed the business Henry Adams in 1991.

Half a billion sales pipeline

It now has 16 offices across Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire and has an annual property sales pipeline worth some £500 million a year.

“From our beginnings as agricultural valuers to the multidisciplinary property firm we are today, the business has continued to evolve with every generation,” says current boss David Adams (main image), son of the late Henry Adams, who retired from the firm in 2022.

“But the values that shaped the firm in the Georgian era, of dedication, respect, teamwork and know-how, remain just as important today as they were nearly two centuries ago.”