My lord! Four East Lancashire titles up for sale

[Archive] ANYONE with visions of grandeur is being given the perfect chance to bid their way into high society - by buying a lordship.

Decendants of the Towneley family have put up for sale 29 prestigious titles, including four in East Lancashire.

For around £7,000 any bidder can officially name themselves lord of the manor in either Accrington Newhold, Bowland, Rossendale or Habergham Eaves.

And the winning bidders, when the items come up for auction next month, will be able to use their new titles on their passports, credit cards and cheque books.

The titles, which are expected to reach between £4,000 to £7,000 each, have been put up for sale by Lord Charles O'Hagan, who is suffering ill health.

Lord O'Hagan, 65, whose real name is Charles Towneley, said that the cash raised by the sale would help pay for medical bills.

The former MEP for Devon lives in Somerset. He said: "It is the sensible option to sell the titles.

"They do not add to my life and I do not live in the area any more.

"If I still had a big estate in Burnley then they would have some point but that has long ceased to be the case."

The Towneley family sold Towneley Hall and the surrounding park to the local authority in 1901 for the then sizable sum of £9,000.

Lord O'Hagan added: "The titles have been in my family for many hundreds of years and I will be sad to see them go but I am sure that they will be popular at auction.

"It is a very unique sale and there is a lot of history behind these titles.

"I hope they are sold to people with a local connection.

"I think it is a very romantic thing and it would be nice if people in the area bought the titles and kept them going locally."

The titles will not allow a bearer a seat in the House of Lords but can be passed down from generation to generation.

The new lords or ladies will be eligible for membership to the Manorial Society of Great Britain, whose governing council includes the Earl of Shrewesbury and Talbot, Lord Sudeley and Sir Desmond de Silva QC.

Robert Smith, Manorial Auctioneers in London, is a leading expert on the sale of Lordships.

He said: "The lordships are like a status symbol and will be very appealing to people with a certain level of income.

"The rich have always displayed their wealth and it can manifest itself in many ways.

"Some people like jewellery or expensive cars.

"Others want a big house or a title like this.

"Lordships have been bought and sold by the rich since 1066 and there is no change now.

"People will be interested in the auction either for sentimental reasons or just for the prestige."

The lord of the manor can expect few privileges, Mr Smith said.

As lord you have rights of owning the land three-feet under the soil, but usually there is no value of owning the "mineral rights" if there are no "commercially exploitable materials".

The other 24 lordships for sale are located across the country and include East Hall in Essex, Ridings Court in Buckinghamshire and Alton in Staffordshire.

The auction takes place on May 20 at Stationers Hall, Ave Maria Lane, London.

Source: lancashiretelegraph.co.uk

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

Aristocratic investment or mere snob value?

Mark Bridge finds out whether buying an historic title can offer any tangible financial benefits.

Most of us know that cash for honours is wrong. Under the law, no peerage title can be sold. However, would-be gentry can legitimately snap up the ancient role of “Lord of the Manor” from about £5,000. Hundreds of manorial lordships, a relic of the medieval feudal system, change hands each year – most sold by “old” families. This month, 23 will be auctioned in London, with estimates from £5,000 to £12,500.

Contrary to popular misconception, lords of the manor are no more lords than a pub landlord. Chris Eubank, for example, bought the lordship of Brighton for £40,000 in 1996 but remains plain Mr Eubank, although he can choose to use the impressive “style” of Lord of the Manor of Brighton after his name.

Despite this, manorial lordships are a piece of history and make an interesting, if not too serious, investment. Prices have climbed from an average of a few hundred pounds in the 1970s to about £7,000 to £10,000 today. But the trading of “titles” is fraught with the dangers of con artists and complications. So it is important to understand how the market works and what to steer clear of.

Robert Smith, of Manorial Auctioneers, which is holding the November 15 sale at Stationers’ Hall, Central London, explains that lordships went with ownership of landed estates until 1922. The two were then separated by an Act of Parliament, but a lordship is still treated as land in law and is transferred by conveyance in the same way as a house or plot.

A legitimate example should be supported by documents that track its ownership. These may be held by the lord of the manor and passed on at each sale, or kept at a county records office. Buyers are advised to hire an independent solicitor to scrutinise them. Geoffrey Barrett, of Blakemores solicitors, says that this should cost from about £300.

Lordships are not intangible assets. Most come with ancient rights, such as fishing or mineral rights or ownership of common or waste land within the manor, which can cover an area of several square miles. Often, these rights have not been exercised for decades or more and must be established after purchase through archival research and the help of a specialist solicitor.

The chances of striking coal or selling a big chunk of manorial waste land to a developer are slim, but lords of the manor are often able to charge power companies a small rent to keep posts or pylons on “waste” verges. A handful have exploited their rights to squeeze residents. The best-known is Mark Roberts, the Cardiff businessman and self-styled Lord Marcher of Trelleck, who has exacted tens of thousands of pounds from villagers in his 60 manors for the right to access their houses across “his” land.

Less common than manorial rights are obligations. The Lord of the Manor of Worksop, Derbyshire, for instance, is required to present the new monarch with a right-hand glove at his or her coronation. Other lords of the manor face the much more onerous burden of liability for repairs to the chancel of a local church. In a recent case, the House of Lords upheld the Church of England’s right to charge one unfortunate couple more than £200,000.

Since the 1920s the value of lordships has waxed and waned with the economy, soaring to an average of £12,000 in the late 1990s. Tony Morris-Eyton, of Savills, the estate agent, says that lordships with sound documentation should, at worst, hold their value. He says: “They are a bit of fun, so don’t do well in a recession but punch above their weight in boom time.”

He adds that the lordships most likely to outpace the market are household names. One such example is Chipping Campden, a pretty Cotswolds village, which is Lot 16 in this month’s auction. The lordship is being sold by the Earl of Gainsborough and has an estimate of £10,000 to £12,000 – small change compared with the record £171,000 paid for the lordship of Wimbledon in 1996.

Jonathan Chaplin, of Strutt & Parker, another estate agent, says that some people buy the lordship that once went with the manor house they own, because they are aware that bundling the two will increase interest in the property when they sell.

Lordships are not the only piece of history on offer at the auction. The final Lot is the Irish “Feudal Barony of Mullingar”. In a disconcerting twist, Timothy Duke, of the College of Arms, says that English and Irish feudal baronies were abolished by law in 1660 and 1662 respectively. Despite this spoiler, the sale looks set to benefit Viscount Gormanston, the peer whose ancestors held the barony, to the tune of £15,000 plus.

Mr Smith insists that the Act cited scrapped obligations once associated with the title, not the title itself. He adds that Manorial Auctioneers sold the English “Feudal Barony of Langley” for Greenwhich Hospital, a Crown charity, last year. “If it [the title] is good enough for the Crown, it’s good enough for us,” he says.

The validity of this title may be contentious, but the internet is home to a number of out-and-out fakes. One ruse is to offer a “title”, then change the buyer’s name from, say, Joe Bloggs to Lord Bloggs. Other sites sell a piece of paper “granting” the buyer often ludicrous honours.

More mainstream sites, such as Moonestates.com, sell tiny plots of land in the Scottish Highlands, claiming that these entitle the owner to the title Laird. However, the Court of the Lord Lyon King of Arms, the chief heraldic authority for Scotland, says that this is not the case.

More information on the trade in questionable and fake titles can be found at Faketitles.com.

CASE STUDY: fun and fringe benefits

Wendy Hobday, left, bought the lordship of Ruislip through Manorial Auctioneers as a Christmas present for her husband, Ken, in 1990 and inherited the role – as Lady of the Manor – on his death. Mrs Hobday, 72, of Denham, Buckinghamshire, paid £30,000 for the lordship, which had been held by King’s College, Cambridge, since its creation in the 15th century.

Mrs Hobday has a passion for local history and says that researching the lordship, which covers about 12 square miles, has been “great fun”.

King’s College chose to retain the mineral rights that once went with the manor, but Mrs Hobday earns about £100 a year in “way leave” rents from power and telecoms companies that keep structures on the land.

She uses the title “whenever it may help”, sometimes shortening it, incorrectly, to “Lady Ruislip”. In her role as Lady of the Manor, she has been asked to open local shops and has been upgraded on flights.

Her advice to would-be lords and ladies of the manor is to hire a good solicitor. The Law Society’s Find a Solicitor helpline on 0870 6062555 can assist.

Source: Business Times Online