Aylesbury Vale man who’s bought and sold woodlands for celebrities marks 40 years in forestry

A Princes Risborough businessman is celebrating 40 years in the forestry industry, where he has become one of the nation’s foremost forestry experts.

John Clegg, aged 66, is director of Tustins forestry and woodlands experts based in Kirtlington, but his career in forestry began when he started working in the family business, John Clegg & Co, in 1983.

The firm – set up and named after his father, also called John, in 1967 – helped companies buy up estates and split them up.

John said: “That was a niche market that grew and I joined in 1983 to assist Colin Gee in Cheshire and Buckinghamshire, and dealt with a number of Forestry Commission sales, which raised our profile.”

Originally based in Chesham before moving to Thame and finally Haddenham, John Clegg & Co was sold in 2016 and John continued to work there before setting up Tustins with Mike Tustin in February 2020.

In his 40 years in the business, John has been involved in around 3,000 sales and acquisitions of woods, from 20 acres to over 3,000 acres.

They include woodlands on the Hampden Estate near Princes Risborough, formerly the home of the Earls of Buckingham, Lock Wood near Abingdon, and an island which, it is reputed, the young Alice Liddell visited with Lewis Carroll, who wrote Through The Looking Glass after one of those visits.

He has acted for celebrities including Bryan Robson, Cliff Richard, Hugh Johnson and Brian May and, according to fellow director Mike Tustin, has “been involved in more woodlands sales than anyone else in the UK”.

He has seen woodland prices rise from around £500 to £1,000 per acre in 1983 to over £25,000 per acre today.

And with no plans to retire yet, John predicts current record levels of forestry investment and land values are set to continue.

“I am very positive about the forestry sector, which I believe has a great future,” he said.

John is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and a longstanding Wycombe Wanderers season ticket holder. A member of Whiteleaf Golf Club in Princes Risborough, he has organised the Foresters Golf Society for more than 20 years.