Christopher Meadows was the head of NY Estates. He visited Beckindale numerous times in between 1981 and 1988 to either see to a problem or tell of new developments.
In May 1986, Meadows hatched a plan to get Mr Golding to sell Hotten Cattle Market to NY Estates. Meadows got Joe Sugden to pull it off. They offered half a million for the market and Golding agreed. On occasions, Christopher's nephew Tony Marchant became a temporary male secretary at Home Farm when Caroline Bates was absent. In August 1987, Meadows said there may be redundancies. Joe was worried that Meadows thought Home Farm was a small irrelevant part of NY Estates. Joe wanted to prove Meadows wrong, but this never came to pass, as in January 1988, NY Estates pulled out of its Beckindale branch totally, as it wanted to expand across the globe. So Christopher Meadows visited the village one last time and he felt that Beckindale was small fry in comparison to what he had planned for NY Estates. Joe Sugden was not too happy but him and Alan Turner soon bought Home Farm.