IN 2012, JULIA AGLIONBY – A LAND agent with an interest in how common land can be managed for the benefit of people and wildlife – was invited to meet the then-Prince of Wales. At that time, her friends Hazel and Joe Relph were accustomed to hosting the Prince once a year at their Cumbrian bed and breakfast and farm, and as he learnt about the issues affecting the Lake District’s famous uplands, he itched to get involved.
The Prince confided in Julia that he was tired of representing different organisations that were often at loggerheads with each other. “He told me, ‘They agree on most things, and if they worked on the things they agree on rather than arguing about the things they disagree on, we’d make an awful lot more progress,’” Julia recalls.
As a result of this conversation, the Prince became a patron of the Foundation for Common Land, where Julia is the executive director, and he has been working for it – largely beyond the gaze of the media or public – ever since.
And he’s not, as you might expect, just
