One of the most prestigious stately homes in the country is at the centre of a bitter legal row over the ownership of part of its vast 25,000 acre estate.
Holkham Hall, valued at more than £200 million, is on the north Norfolk coast and owned by the Earl of Leicester and the huge farming estate is run by Jake Fiennes.
But the picturesque marshes of Burnham Overy Staithe, near Brancaster, are at the centre of an extraordinarily fierce row in which villagers are challenging the power and influence of the local ‘Lord of the Manor’.
Locals claim that more than 3,000 acres of land is legally common land. They say the Earl of Leicester, of nearby Holkham Hall, has ‘unfairly’ claimed the part of the area as his own and that the land is being wrongly treated as private property.
Sailors and boat users are charged for moorings and launchings on the popular waterways and the fees are claimed by the Burnham Overy Harbour Trust which leases the land from the Holkham estate.
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