New chief executive appointed at Raby Estate

LORD Barnard has announced that Duncan Peake will take up the role of chief executive of Raby Estate starting in June 2017.
Mr Peake will join Raby having spent nearly ten years managing the Holker Group of Companies on behalf of Lord and Lady Cavendish, of the Holker Estate, in Cumbria.
The 57-year-old is a qualified chartered surveyor hailing from Blackburn, in Lancashire, originally studying estate management at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester.
He has 30 years’ experience with a successful track record developing some of the UK’s foremost landed estate businesses. Mr Peake joined Holker as CEO in 2007 leading the senior management team to establish Holker as a key player in the south Cumbria local economy.
He has been instrumental in developing enterprises which include arable farming operations, estate agency and property development businesses and stone and aggregate quarrying.
He has also developed Holker Hall and Gardens, Holker Holiday Parks and Cartmel Racecourse with a strong focus on customer care and service.
Mr Peake currently sits on the boards of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership and Cumbria Tourism. Before joining Holker he managed the Castle Howard Estate near York for ten years.
He will be working closely with Lord Barnard to develop a business plan to move the Raby Estate forward onto a successful and sustainable business footing.
Mr Peake said he is “delighted to be joining Raby at such an important and exciting time in its history” and “will be looking forward to working closely with Lord and Lady Barnard to establish and safeguard the business for future generations.”
He added: “Raby has always been a key player in the local economy and I’m looking forward to working with team at Raby and building on the achievements of others who have gone before me.”
He joins Raby a time of change during what has been a transitional period since the death of the 11th Lord Barnard in April last year.
Lord Barnard said: “Duncan will be joining us at the beginning of June and is also planning time here between now and then to familiarise himself with Raby. He is hugely experienced in rural property as well as visitor attractions. I am very pleased that he will be joining us and I look forward to welcoming him here.”
The Raby Estate includes an extensive residential and commercial property portfolio, arable farming operation, forestry and timber products, a sporting game department with popular grouse shoot, as well as regionally important visitor attractions Raby Castle and High Force Waterfall as well as agricultural and forestry operations in Shropshire.