To the manor bought

"Lord of the Manor" titles are being bought at auction for thousands of pounds, provoking bitter disputes over the ownership of village greens and grass verges, and prompting campaigners to call for the abolition of feudal laws.
A village in the Peak District has become an unlikely battleground between the country's old feudal laws and the modern British legal system.

The title of Lord of the Manor of Alstonefield was bought for £10,000 in 1999 by a business in Wales.

That business is owned by Mark Roberts, who also styles himself Lord Marcher of Trelleck, another title his company owns. It owns 60 titles in all.

He claims ownership of grass verges and commons in Alstonefield, but the parish council has disputed this claim, saying it has an old legal document to prove a previous lord of the manor gave up rights to this land in the 1800s.

Mr Roberts initially had a caution put against first registration of the title across a 25,000-acre area covering the ancient parish, to make sure no-one else registered a lord of the manor title for the same area.

But it had the unintended effect of stopping house sales because lenders and buyers were made aware that someone had some sort of claim or interest in the area of land.

Some villagers also found they didn't have right of way into their properties, as Mr Roberts was claiming ownership of grass verges, and they ended up paying him for access. In one case, a resident paid £15,000 for land next to his house.

"It's been absolutely horrendous for ordinary families living within this situation," says Sue Fowler, a parish councillor in Alstonefield, who believes Mr Roberts is imposing 11th Century laws on a 21st Century community.

"I think it's about time we made it a criminal offence to make money in such a way."

Arguments
A similar situation arose in a village near Newport in Wales, Peterstone Wentloog, where Mr Roberts is also lord of the manor.

Then in 2005, the law changed so that no-one can charge a person for accessing their property via common land any more, as long as they can show they have been doing so for 20 years or more.

This change put an end to the practice, but in Alstonefield the arguments continued, despite the fact the caution had been lifted.

Mr Roberts claimed ownership of common land too, which includes several greens. He said he would lease the land to the parish council for a nominal sum. But the council refused as that would effectively recognise him as landowner.

Instead, the council applied for village green status so it could protect the villagers' free use of the land, no matter who owned it.

The lord objected and a public inquiry was called, at a cost to the parish council of £16,000. Earlier this month, Staffordshire County Council granted village green status to just four of Alstonefield's many grassy areas. That means the arguments could continue over more than 10 other pieces of land.

"We do not buy titles. We buy manors, which are the oldest form of landed estate," says Mr Roberts.

"We buy these old landed estates for the land including demesne agricultural land, pasture land, quarries, common land, waste land and foreshore that go with them, which we manage in a traditional way as any other major landowner does and has done over the last 1,000 years.

"We are in essence akin to a small version of the Crown Estate or Duchy of Cornwall Estate."

Scores of titles are bought and sold every year. Often people buy them for fun, like ex-boxer Chris Eubank, but some people see a business opportunity.

This is entirely legal and there is no doubt the titles can be valuable. As well as rights to land like wastes and commons, they can also give the holder rights over land.

For example, mineral rights, hunting and fishing rights, the right to hold a market - even the right to a beached whale, should one wash up in your manor.

However, it can be difficult to exercise feudal rights in today's legal landscape. For example, you cannot build a mine without planning permission and the mining of gold, silver and oil are subject to statutory restrictions.

Campaigners around the country, as well as some politicians and legal professionals, say manorial rights are anachronistic and ought to be abolished.

"This is a long way from the feudal system in the 13th Century," says Judith Bray, a land law expert from Buckingham University.

"People are looking at these rights for personal gain and for business opportunities. They no longer have the reciprocal duties that they owed in the 13th Century. It is now an opportunity to exploit their position."

She said the legal situation is very confusing because a piece of legislation in the 1920s separated manorial rights from the ownership of land.

It is not known how many manorial rights are even held, although the Land Registration Act 2002 set a 10-year window in which all such rights have to be registered.

Trespass

Mark Roberts strongly rebuts any suggestion that his pursuit of manorial rights causes a nuisance.

"I have a right to protect my land against modern encroachment and trespass," he told the BBC Radio 4's Law in Action programme. "The majority of listeners would not countenance a trespass in their back garden and neither will I, no matter how big the perpetrator."

The Law Commission in England and Wales is considering a project to abolish feudal land law, acknowledging the remnants cause "uncertainty" to the public, legal professionals and the courts. But any such project would not include a review of manorial rights.

Source: Ruth Alexander
BBC Radio 4's Law in Action


Comment

The lady from Birmingham University is wrong to say that 1920s legislation separated manorial rights from the land - they had always been separable and the 19th century saw many instances of impecunious landed families selling the land and retaining the lordship rights, or if more modern in their approach selling the rights (in the belief they were only of interest to moneyed snobs) but retaining the land. Some country solcitors and estate agents built up large portfolios of manorial titles as a result. The 1920s land law reforms abolished manorial tenure (called copyhold) but was not able to abolish lordships of the manor because the interests in them were too many, too varied and too untraceable for the necessary compensation scheme to be a viable option. It is hard to see how this could be got around now, especially as there is now a European dimension to the uncompensated loss of legal rights or privileges.

Emma Badian, London