It takes a family to raise a village

ONCE upon a time, not so many generations ago, it was common for a landed estate to own the nearby village—a fact often reflected in the name of the local pub and, sometimes, in the uniform architecture of the buildings. Quite how many such villages there once were awaits the dedicated labours of academic study, but what we do know is that now, of hundreds or even thousands, scarcely a dozen or so privately owned villages remain.

‘I own a village, but I own a community–and I’m responsible for that community’

With soaring death duties, rent acts and collapsing land prices in the aftermath of the World Wars, vast tracts of land were sold off across the