Thainstone Livestock Market, on the outskirts of Inverurie in Aberdeenshire, stands as Scotland’s premier livestock mart and one of the largest agricultural centres in the UK. Built on the estate of Thainstone House and officially opened in 1990, the complex was designed as a modern replacement for older local marts and set out to handle large volumes of animals under one roofThe Gazetteer for Scotland. Its creation transformed the local rural economy by concentrating sales, services and agricultural businesses in a single purpose-built site that also houses industry organisations, farm service businesses and conference facilities.
The scale of Thainstone is striking. Architects planned a facility with three auction rings, a central atrium surrounded by offices and shops, a restaurant and extensive covered accommodation able to hold thousands of animals at once. The covered yards are rated to accommodate roughly 3,000 cattle or 14,000 sheep at any one time, allowing the mart to run large, continuous sales programmes through the yearThe Gazetteer for Scotland. Those facilities underpin an annual throughput measured in the hundreds of thousands: Thainstone sells in the region of 300,000 sheep and around 110,000 cattle each year, a volume that makes it Scotland’s busiest livestock market and draws buyers and vendors from across the UK.
Thainstone’s sales programme covers the full range of commercial farm livestock. The market runs regular sheep and cattle auctions and specialist sales for store cattle, breeding cattle, prime cattle, cast cows and bulls, weaned calves and various categories of sheep including prime lambs, store sheep and breeding ewes. This breadth means the mart handles beef and dairy-bred cattle of multiple breeds and crosses, store and finishing cattle, hill and lowland sheep types, and occasional specialist consignments such as island or pedigree entries brought in for particular sales. The mart’s regular sale reports show lively trade values across seasons, with cattle achieving high per-kilogram prices at headline sales and sheep throughput remaining consistently high through lambing and finishing cyclesAberdeen & Northern Marts+1.
Operationally Thainstone runs a dense weekly calendar to serve the region’s farmers. The centre holds weekly sales throughout the year, with sheep sales typically scheduled on Mondays and cattle sales on Tuesdays, alongside an organised programme of specialist sales and machinery or event days on other weekdays. That regular rhythm — plus ad hoc special sales such as annual breeding shows and large seasonal dispersals — gives local and visiting buyers steady opportunities to attend and bid, and supports the broader agricultural calendar across Aberdeenshire and beyond.
Beyond the numbers and timetables, Thainstone has become a hub for the rural economy. Its conference and exhibition spaces and the presence of organisations such as the National Farmers’ Union of Scotland and educational and government rural offices on site turn the mart into more than an auction venue: it is a meeting place for market intelligence, training and rural business services that underpin farming in the north-east. The busy daily cadence of sales, the capacity to house very large consignments, and the extensive supporting businesses located on site combine to make Thainstone a focal point for Scottish livestock trade.
In short, Thainstone is a purpose-built, high-capacity livestock centre established in 1990 that handles some of the largest annual volumes of sheep and cattle in Scotland, regularly selling hundreds of thousands of sheep and more than a hundred thousand cattle, while operating a weekly sales schedule with sheep typically on Mondays and cattle on Tuesdays alongside specialist sale days throughout the week.
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