Who owns dorset

BH21 3RT. DT10 2EF. BH20 7HU. DT11 0RP. Martin CP. William Thomas Michael Taylor. The land comprising the whole of the holding known as Down Farm which surrounds the farm itself and is shown edged Red on the Map provided. Rebecca Kimber-Danger - Fowler Fortescue. Grid Ref Land known as Barton's Ground, Sturminster Marshall. DT11 8JN. DT11 8JQ. In fact, it turns out, just ten landowners own one-sixth of all Dorset. Charlotte Townshend, who is the only landowner besides the Queen permitted to own swans yes, really.

The most significant of these estates form an almost unbroken arc across east Dorset stretching from Cranborne Chase down to Lulworth Cove. Many of them have been in existence for centuries, frequently in the hands of the same family. As landownership clusters go, they are perhaps comparable to the set of even larger estates that dominate the chalk hills of the South Downs National Park , further to the east.

I will take them down if requested by OS. Percentage owned by top 10 landowners , acres , acres Wikipedia states it to be 7, acres, citing a Daily Mail article from But this appears to be a considerable underestimate. To investigate further, I checked a variety of sources. But neither show anything like the full Drax estate.

I had a look on some paid-for tools which map Land Registry corporate and commercial landowner data, but the land titles for the Charborough Estate are all registered to individuals and trusts, not to companies.

I then recreated these digitally using GIS software, and measured the area: at some 13, acres, Richard Drax MP appears to own almost twice as much as previous public estimates. The Lulworth Estate is perhaps best known for its impressive castle and for hosting Camp Bestival each summer. The Hon. Charlotte Townshend, one of the richest people in the South West, owns the Ilchester Estates — which in Dorset encompass Abbotsbury a large swathe of farmland along the coast as well as a big part of Chesil Beach, of Ian McEwan and pebbles fame ; and Melbury, a stately home and surrounding parkland further inland.

I suspect that the Hon. Oh yes, and swans. The last of these are the largest and have perhaps the most controversial history. They began to be used for firing ranges during WWI, but it was during WWII that the War Office decided it needed to take over the whole area and remove the remaining residents. To this day Tyneham remains a shell, a ghost village, nestled in a valley that time has forgotten.

It is now open to the public though — a concession made by the MOD after decades of campaigning. Fleming lived in Dorset for a while, where he also encountered the Drax family owners of the aforementioned Charborough Estate.

In their honour, Fleming named his arch-villain Hugo Drax. So, you could say that the pattern of land ownership in Dorset gave us James Bond. Thanks to Miles King for this local history! Charborough is a traditional rural estate located in South Dorset, close to the towns of Wareham, Blandford Forum and Wimborne Minster.

First recorded in the Doomsday Book, Charborough has a rich and colourful history and is now host to an increasingly wide range of activity. Parts of the estate stretch from Wareham and the edge of the Isle of Purbeck to the south up to the River Stour to the north. Road access is good with both the A31 trunk road and the A35 passing through the property.