by Sir Richard FitzHerbert, he tells me, is keen not to be seen as “that gentleman in the big house”.
FitzHerbert is the current holder of the FitzHerbert barony, which he inherited in 1989 aged 24, along with Jacobean Tissington Hall, 2,000 rolling Derbyshire acres and 50 stone cottages, most of which are tenanted. and which constitute the village of Tissington.
Mentioned in the Domesday Book as “Tizinctun”, today Tissington is a great stop on the way to Alton Towers or the Peak District – a pretty village around the 12th century St Mary’s church, with a pretty duck pond, six ancient wells and the Chamber Herbert tea (made into delicious toasted tea cakes with “Lady Fiona’s favorite preservatives”).
When he’s not “being that gentleman”, FitzHerbert explains that he likes to “get stuck in” at the annual village festival, threading his head and arms through the logs and showing off to the villagers and visitors. to pour in the water.
“You have to be both ringmaster and comedian in this business,” says FitzHerbert of the modern concerns of running a private village. The estate has been in the FitzHerbert family since 1609 and Tissington has been staying with the 9th Baron, he explains, through a mix of residential and touring tenants.
“The tenants accept tourism because they know it pays staff wages and covers estate repairs,” he continues. FitzHerbert has converted four of the village’s stone cottages into Airbnbs, and has let three self-contained holiday apartments within Tissington Hall. “We have a very nice Slovenian couple staying at the moment,” he says.
Do you want to have your own village? If you’re super rich, you can. On June 28, Sir Thomas and Lady Ingilby announced their intention to sell the Ripley Castle Estate in North Yorkshire, with its Grade I-listed 14th-century country house, village pub and collection of stone cottages.
The estate has been in the Ingilby family since Sir Thomas Ingilby had earlier claimed it as a dowry when he married the heiress Edeline Thwenge in 1308. Handled by Carter Jonas agents in Harrogate, Ripley will be listed in October on for a period yet to be done. -be-disclosed sum.
The 21st century squire selling up, after 24 generations of family ownership, is a reflection of the financial pressure on the country’s last remaining private village keepers, who must manage their residential and business tenants while keeping ancient sweeping and church cobblestones. intact spires.
There are a few dozen such privately owned villages in the UK. Others include Heydon in Norfolk, Aldbury in Surrey, Clovelly in Devon and Great Tew in Oxfordshire, once owned by industrialist Michael Boulton and now in the care of the Johnston family.
Stefan Persson, the Swedish billionaire owner of fashion giant H&M, was one of the last people to build an entire private village, Linkenholt in Hampshire, home to around 40 people, which he bought for £25m in 2009.
The whole concept attracts dissent, with some seeing it as a reversal of feudalism that allows the super-rich to keep parcels of the British countryside as their personal fiefdoms. Much is made of the fact that some villages enforce mandatory color schemes, including Yattenden’s bottle-green doors, window frames and telephone box, Aldbury’s mid-green railings and drainage pipes and Glynde’s deep blue flashing and doors.
The Rous family, owners of Clovelly, have been criticized when they introduced a tourist fee to enter their village in 2023 (£9.50 for adults and £5.50 for children aged seven to 16).
One resident of Glynde, a village of 312 souls in Sussex owned and managed by Bishop Hampden, told Travel Telegraph that rising rents mean long-standing community members have left the village to be replaced by London commuters. “There are very few local Sussex families left,” said the village resident. “Glende is a business these days – a commuter town with dark windows during the day and not much of a sense of community.”
A one bedroom flat in the village is currently being advertised on OpenRent for £950 per month. The Glynde estate has been contacted for comment.
The current owner of Clovelly, between Bideford and Bude on the North Devon coast, is the Honorable John Rous. The estate has been in the Hamlyn family since 1738, when it was bought for £9,438 by the Honorable John Rous Zachary Hamlyn, who had made his fortune as a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer.
For centuries this beautiful village, with its rugged, dune main street that drops down to a curved bay, was tenanted by fishermen.
“We only have a few fishing families left these days though,” says Rous. The Devonshire squire, tongue firmly in cheek, explains that he “socially engineers” the village’s tenants these days. “Elderly people bring stability to a village or community, while younger families bring it to life,” he says. “It’s lovely to see energetic young people swimming in the bay or going out mackerel fishing.”
Since Covid introduced new norms of working from home, Clovelly has also welcomed the city’s residents. “We had an advertising executive come here, and an Australian-Chinese who works for Google DeepMind with his American gourmet food producer girlfriend. The newcomers brought glamor to the village, I must say.”
However, Clovelly bans Airbnbs and other short-term holiday lettings and instead manages its own small hotels and guesthouses. Meanwhile, paid day visitors must leave by 5pm. “There’s not much to do here in the evening but sit and watch the fishing boats come in,” says Rous.
Residents tend to be very tolerant of the camera-toting entrants – “you don’t move to Clovelly if you’re going to have people snooping in your windows,” says Rous – although he’s been known to play tricks on finer sightseers. “One woman tourist asked a local what we do here in the winter months and he told her that we light a huge fire down on the beach and dance around it naked,” says Rous. “I’m afraid to say she believed it.”
Does Ripley’s sale usher in an era where privately owned villages become relics from antiquity? Sir Richard FitzHerbert, 59, admits that the millennial generation of toffs are less keen to deal with strict planning permissions, disgruntled tenants and keeping the streets scrubbed for tourists.
“It’s a terrible headache for us the best of all,” he laughs. And with that, he is off being doused by the peasants.
