A Brief History

Our journey started in 1954 by Len Tuckwell who established a contract spraying company called “Worlingworth Contracts” – an innovative company, spraying farms at 7s 6d per acre. From there, it wasn’t long before Len branched into machinery sales as a sub dealer for Ford and Ferguson Tractors – and with a bit of good luck and alot of hard work, by 1964, Len was operating a working farm, trading machinery, fertiliser, agro-chemicals and a fleet of 400 hire sprayers.

In 1965, Len was approached by John Deere to became one of the UK’s first John Deere dealers, covering east Suffolk, and in 1978 became the first UK dealer to reach £1m in sales of John Deere products in a calendar year.

Len’s son Paul joined the company in 1975 and set up P Tuckwell Ltd with the opening of a new depot in Ardleigh, Essex. With a new customer base, the company continued to steadily grow.

In 1986, Tuckwells entered the amenity market with the appointment as a John Deere turf dealers for Essex.

During this next 15 years John Deere continued to build their reputation and slogans such as ‘reliability is our strength’ set the bedrock for market share growth in the UK.

In 2001, the company expanded into south and west Essex through the acquisition of a well-respected dealership, Blyth and Pawsey and in 2012, expansion continued into to Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire with acquisition of another longstanding business, JE Buckle Engineering. Through these acquisitions, Tuckwells became one of the largest machinery dealerships in the UK.

Fast forward another 10 years to 2021, and the growth within the business has continued. In March of this year, Tuckwells completed the acquisition of Burden Bros Agri Ltd, the John Deere dealership covering the South East of England. This latest acquisition means that Tuckwells now serves the regions of Kent and East Sussex for Agricultural, Turf, Fruit and Vineyard machinery.

Today, we employ approximately 300 staff and operate across ten locations in the East of England. We represent a portfolio of industry-leading brands and specialise in the sale, service, parts supply and technology solutions for agricultural and turf machinery, which is the inspiration behind our new brand identity which was proudly released earlier this year. The rebrand has seen the name P Tuckwell Ltd change to Tuckwells, a name already used by many of our customers. Our logo remains a tractor – a tractor that pays homage to our history, and Len Tuckwell’s first ever tractor sale.

In addition, we also operate Tuckwell Farms, a 1500 acre working farm that is focused on trialling equipment and technology as well championing farming through biology and sustainable methods.

Find out more about our culture here.