Cheffins has been serving clients in the east of England since 1825. Today it is a diverse and vibrant professional firm with regionally, nationally and internationally recognised experts in all types of property and real estate, fine arts, vintage machinery, farm and contractors' machinery, rural and private client services.

Its origins can be traced through a history of acquisitions, mergers, innovations and diversifications which continue to the present day. In each generation its proprietors and partners have guided it through a succession of agricultural depressions, economic recessions, outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, and changes in local economic conditions. They have also seized upon opportunities to add to the firm's activities or capitalise on changing markets.

For example, the Cambridge Machinery sales (now the largest in the world) started 70 years ago when wartime restrictions limited the output of new tractors and farm machinery – creating a lively trade in secondhand equipment.

The now thriving Vintage farm machinery sales were launched in 1975 to counter the drastic fall in income partly due to livestock markets being closed by foot and mouth disease and the change in meat trading with the growth of the supermarkets.

The Fine Arts department grew rapidly from a deliberate decision to construct purpose-built premises at Cherry Hinton Road which opened in 1982. Previously, Cheffins had conducted sales of chattels and house contents as a routine part of their business but saw huge potential in creating a specialist auction house.

These developments were driven both by a need to replace lost income from changes in their core livestock market and farming activities and to build on the firm's long auctioneering traditions.