From welcoming its first cohort of 40 residential students in 1948, the college now educates around 4,000 students and 800 apprentices a year at sites across Northern England.

Graded by Ofsted as ‘good’ for teaching and ‘outstanding’ for its residential care and provision, the college prides itself on providing a high quality industry relevant curriculum and making all of its students feel welcome.

Over the decades, its facilities and estate have expanded at its main campus in York with additional sites located at Middlesbrough, Saltaire, Newcastle Gateshead and Wakefield.

A wide range of full and part-time further and higher education programme are offered and the college continues to provide residential provision to around 300 students a year.

It has also seen growth in its degree courses for undergraduates and postgraduates through its exciting higher education offer at University Centre Askham Bryan, York.

When it opened in 1948, the college offered two subjects – agriculture and horticulture. Today, the college has a broader offer including agriculture, animal science and conservation, arboriculture and forestry, engineering, equine, horticulture, motorsport, uniformed public services, sports coaching and veterinary nursing.

As the college celebrates its remarkable journey, it remains committed to engaging students in an industry relevant curriculum that enhances their skills and career prospects and meets employers’ needs.

This is evident in its more recent facilities including the animal management centre and Askham Bryan Wildlife and Conservation Park, which opened in 2017.

One of the largest build projects in the college’s history the £6.8 million facility, showcased a two-storey animal management building featuring a range of world wildlife habitats and modern teaching facilities. During the same year, a £2.4 million agricultural and engineering hub was also unveiled as the focus of practical studies for agricultural students.

The college has ambitious plans for the future. Its strategic plan, Vision 2030, is to become a leading college nationally for animal science and conservation and sustainable food production. To find out more, watch the strategic plan video.

Its award winning £1 million Digital Skills Academy, which opened in September 2022, demonstrates how it is preparing students for a fast-paced and ever-changing professional environment.

It is vital that the curriculum keeps pace with industry developments and the new facilities are equipping students with new higher level technical skills that fill skills gaps, increase productivity, and support entrepreneurship and job creation.

The facilities have been hailed for taking teaching and learning to a new level ensuring that the next generation of talent have the high tech skills to meet the current and future challenges for the economy and environment.

The £1 million Digital Skills Academy has the latest equipment to develop students’ digital capabilities and has been made possible by the Yorkshire and Humber Institute of Technology, which Askham Bryan College is part of.

The academy has been funded by York & North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership through the government’s Getting Building Fund to develop capacity in digital teaching, learning, assessment and upskilling.

The college has also opened a £1.7 million precision livestock facility funded by the Yorkshire and Humber Institute of Technology.

Comprising a calf rearing facility and beef grower unit, and a teaching and learning space, the state-of-the-art equipment is being used by diploma and degree level students studying at University Centre Askham Bryan.

The college remains committed to delivering with purpose, taking ownership, building trust and always learning as it supports its students and staff in the years ahead.

Due to its long history, today’s Askham Bryan College has had a number of different names.

The original proposal for a land-based college located in Askham Bryan (the Yorkshire Agricultural Institute) was made in 1934.

Two years later the first foundation stone was laid and between 1936-39 construction was completed of the Main Building and Dairy Block (now used as the Learning Resources Centre).

The origins of the horticulture department can be traced to a decision in 1933 to move the work conducted by Leeds University at the Osgodby Fruit Station near Selby, to Askham. Originally it was intended to plant the fruit in Field No 103, the front field on an ideal south facing slope, but when it was realised in 1935 that money was likely to be made available to build the Institute, the fruit was located over the ridge to the present site of the horticulture department, leaving Field 103 free for construction of the main building and the entrance gates and front drive.

When war broke out in September 1939, the Institute had not quite been completed. However, a request from the Ministry of Agriculture was received later that month, that the facility should be used for the training of land girls.

The Women’s Land Army was a mobile, agricultural labour force of women specially recruited in both world wars to assist in increasing the production of home-grown food.

Recruits received four weeks of training in the skills needed to produce essential food supplies for Britain. They learned the techniques of market gardening, how to care for and milk cows, both by hand and machine, and how to grow and harvest field crops and animal fodder. These town dwellers were then found jobs on farms throughout the county and beyond.

By the end of October 1939, 30 land girls arrived (20 from West Riding and 10 from the East and North). Much of Westfield and East Barrow farms were utilised for food production, the market garden glasshouses and orchard continued in production throughout partly staffed by the land girls.

Between 1943-47 the Ministry’s National Institute of Agricultural Engineering (NIAE) moved to temporary quarters at Askham Bryan. Machine workshops were built behind the main building (determining the future site of the machinery department). Priority in the early 1940s was given to testing the development of new machinery and training to those involved as machinery instructors and members of War Agricultural Executive Committees.

The site was de-requisitioned in 1947, after the NIAE departed, and enrolled its first residential students, 40 students arrived for a two-term course in January 1948. Regular one-year courses in general Agriculture and Horticulture began in the September with 58 students, 2 studying horticulture and all male full-time residential cohort.

Mr JA Lindsay was appointed Principal in Sept 1948 and writing in the first prospectus said “Owing to the limited accommodation available”, admission was “at present”, limited to men only. The intention had always been that courses should be open for both sexes but it was not until 1968 that the college saw its first intake of full-time female students in 1964, onto a horticulture course.

Mr JA Lindsay emphasised that students should spend 50% of their time “out on the farm” receiving practical instruction and doing practical work. Smart dress was expected at all times with a collar and tie being required even when students were engaged on practical work.

In 1981 an HND course in agriculture was introduced. All supplementary courses had been phased out by 1979, and the advanced courses began to offer options.

L.C.G Gilling, Principal since 1957, retired in 1984. He had presided over the college’s growth from 70 to more than 250 student places, and had overseen the considerable building programme which made this expansion possible. He also pioneered the facilitation of three-year Ordinary and Higher National Diploma courses, developed to offer specialist skills and knowledge demanded by carers in land  and countryside management, as well as mainstream agriculture and horticulture.

The work of the college had also expanded to include supervision of part-time education at various rural centres.

For the first time in its history, the College was now able to offer a one year degree course to successful HND students. The BSC degree in Land Management and Technology was affiliated by The University of Leeds.

In 2001 the first HE animal management courses started with the College’s flagship 3-year BSc(Hons) programme first intake in 2006/07. The College was delighted to offer its first MSc programmes in 2018.

The Animal Management Centre and Wildlife Park was opened as a public attraction and teaching facility. One of the largest build projects in the college’s history the £6.8 million facility, showcasing a two-storey animal management building featuring a range of world wildlife habitats and modern teaching facilities.

In February 2017 a £2.4m agricultural and engineering hub was opened to be the focus of practical studies for agricultural students. The agri-tech centre was built to provide a practical and innovative space for its students. The building lies at the heart of the College’s York campus, featuring lecture rooms with latest IT technology, farm information room and 900sqm double height workshop with specialist equipment. The building is known as the Lance Gilling Building, named after the College’s longest serving Principal (1954-1984) and leading agriculturalist.

An important milestone in the College’s history was marked by the opening of two facilities in 2021. £1.7m has been invested in a precision livestock facility (with teaching and learning space, a precision calf-rearing facility and beef grower unit) to enable the delivery of courses on sustainable and high welfare farming practices and allow students access to real-time data and a fully digitised approach to rearing beef animals.

Towards the end of the year, a £1m project to extend the College’s existing Learning Resources centre was completed. Teaching essential digital literacy skills to students, and upskilling the current land-based workforce in line with industry -emergent technologies, the space features a mixed-reality suite to enable students to access simulated environments to provide a richer more expansive learning experience.

When the College originally opened in 1948 it recruited 40 students but now the College has over 5000 enrolments in educational programmes from entry level provision to Masters Degrees.