By early 1973 Coke had taken over the management of the estate, which had become severely in need of improvement. Of the 300 houses on the estate, only around thirty had bathrooms, the Hall was still heated by open fires, and, as he later said, the Park Farm was possibly the only loss-making farm in the country. This was the start of a lifelong project to modernise farming, the estate's buildings, and the Hall, to ensure a viable legacy for future generations. In 1996 he won the Laurent Perrier Award for Conservation, specifically recognising outstanding conservation work carried out to ensure the sustainability of the grey partridge population.