Company History

Abbey Manor is one of the leading private property companies in Southern England with a £200 million development pipeline stretching from Cornwall to Essex. The company has associated property investment, business centre & conferencing and waste management business interests.

The Abbey Manor history can be traced back to 1870 with the establishment of Somerset builder E.R. Bartlett. The company incorporated in 1913 and grew steadily as a regional building contractor for the next fifty years. In the 1960s, the company shifted its focus to property development. This has remained the core business activity to this day.

As property developers, not traders, Abbey Manor undertakes the full development process from blank sheet of paper to completed building with a team of project, development and construction managers. The company produces results by focusing development activities through effective project and financial management and building long-term relationships with our customers and partners.

To date, Abbey Manor has completed some 7 million sq.ft of commercial and residential development. A cornerstone of this activity has been an extensive portfolio of both bespoke design and build and speculative employment land use based development projects.

The company has also completed a range of industrial, office, warehouse & distribution, residential, retail, leisure, infrastructure and mixed-use projects in Avon, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Somerset, Sussex and Wiltshire.  It maintains a significant bank of both residential and commercial land with outline planning consents.

Remaining privately owned and funded, Abbey Manor is a very different company today than at its origin in the 19th Century, whilst retaining its core values of teamwork, creativity, a drive for excellence and an ability to get things done with an entrepreneurial spirit.


Headquarters of the Abbey Manor Group

Property Solutions
The Group is able to offer our clients solutions assembled from the following activities:

Commercial Development
• Office
• Non-Food Retail
• Food Retail
Motor Retail
• Industrial Development
• Industrial Business Parks





Houndstone Retail Park - 120,000 sq ft
speculative scheme, sold to Legal & General

Residential Property Development
• Strategic Land
• Private Housebuilding
• Partnership Housing
• Brownfield/Greenfield
• Landbank Trading



27 acre former MOD oil storage depot,
Radford Woods, Plymstock, Plymouth

Partnership & Consortium Development/Joint Venturing
• Development Agencies
• Local Authorities
• Private Developers
• Private Business



Neptune Park, 6 acre land reclamation
project at Cattedown, Plymouth

Turnkey Development
• Design & Build
• Project Management
• Infrastructure Projects
• Planning Advice
• Asset Management

4,000 sq ft office building - and 2 acre
scaffolding depot for an industrial client.