Oakfield Estate Agents has announced its acquisition of near-century-old estate agency, Rowland Gorringe, taking over the company’s offices in Lewes, Uckfield and Heathfield with immediate effect.

All three of Gorringe’s locations are in East Sussex, where Oakfield has had a presence since the mid-1990s. It runs branches across Hastings, Eastbourne and Bexhill-on-Sea, having started off with just one small site in Hastings, and was established by Neil Newstead and Stephen Ruxton-Cocker. The firm specialises in residential sales, lettings and block management.

Gorringe’s group chairman, Edward Gorringe, has already retired from the business and all remaining staff will transfer over to Oakfield.

For its part, Rowland Gorringe Estate Agents was founded in 1926. Like Oakfield, it is very much an independent, family-run business, and highly respected in the areas in which it works. Its operation encompasses sales and lettings and in recent years it has been a Gold winner in the British Property Awards on more than one occasion.

Founder and CEO at Oakfield, Neil Newstead, commented:

“We’re all absolutely thrilled that the Rowland Gorringe business will now benefit from our extensive expertise, as well as our greater economies of scale. We have deep roots across East Sussex, and the county will always be our home.

“Thanks to this acquisition, we’re now ideally placed to offer our high-quality estate agency services more widely across our region.”

A separate office in Seaford, trading under the Rowland Gorringe name, is unaffected by the acquisition.