been sold by December 1979), but farms continued to be amalgamated. In 1980, when the gross rental was £97,600, the estate was let to five principal farm tenants, who were paying an average of £34 an acre. The largest holdings were Hurst Farm, whose 700 a. included most of the farmland of the parish north of the village, and the combined Home Farm & Little Hill Farm, with 678 a. stretching from the village, through the former park down to the Ouse. The others were Mount Mill & Limes End (469 a. in two separate holdings, of which the latter was in Leckhampstead), Sparrow Lodge (299 a. to the south-east of the village), and Dagnall & Dovehouse (445 a. between Wicken and Deanshanger).
In the early 1980s the Society sold the house and buildings at Dovehouse Farm, which were redundant since the land was being worked from Dagnall, and in 1984 offered Wicken Road Farm, a smallholding of 22 a. let for £800, for sale by auction at a reserve of £104,000. The following year Mount Mill & Limes End (274 a.) was sold to the tenant. Continuing a policy of reducing its holding of agricultural estate, the Society accepted an offer from the tenants for the 709 a. of Home Farm & Little Hill in 1986, although one field on the edge of the village was retained, in the hope that planning permission for residential development might one day be obtained. These sales reduced the Society's estate to 1,877 a., let in 1992 for £101,500 gross. The remaining farms were Sparrow Lodge (302 a.), Hurst (702 a.) and Dagnall (442 a.), plus 141 a. of accommodation land at Pig & Whistle, near Hurst. Of these, Dagnall was sold in 1992.
In 1980 the Society's land steward described the overall standard of farm management at Wicken as good, with the tenant of Hurst Farm setting the pace. This was run on an allarable five-year rotation based on winter wheat, barley and oil seed rape, with spring break crops including sugar beet, peas, beans and linseed. The farm also had 60 breeding sows. The system depended on high inputs achieving high outputs, a large i