By Martin Brisland.
In 1940, folk singer Woody Guthrie, champion of the downtrodden in America, wrote This Land is My Land. It was later covered by many, including Pete Seeger.
A young unknown Bob Dylan visited Woody when he was in hospital to pay his respects. The song contains a universal truth that ownership of land gives wealth, power, and privilege to a minority.
It is estimated that less than 1% of the population owns half of England.
The land area of the UK covers approximately 24.2 million hectares, but working out exactly who owns what is not simple.
HM Land Registry has existed since 1862 and records ownership of land and property in England and Wales, but 17% of land remains unregistered. The Registry charges you £7 to find out who owns a single field or property, and with twenty-four million land titles in the country – researching the lot would cost £168 million.
The largest land-owning entity is the Forestry Commission plus Forestry and Land Scotland, Forestry England, and Natural Resources Wales. The forestry organisations are public bodies and Shrubsole estimates that the entire public sector – including the Ministry of Defence, local authorities, Network Rail and Highways England, accounts for around 8.5% of land in England.
Second largest is the National Trust which owns 330,000 hectares of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.
The Crown Estates, the Duchy of Cornwall and other lands tied to the Royal Family come to 1.4% of the land owned. This includes London’s Regent Street, including the freehold for Apple’s flagship UK store. The Duchy of Cornwall owns London’s Oval Cricket Ground. The monarch was excluded from entering the House of Commons after the English Civil War, but the Crown still owns the freehold to the Houses of Parliament as it is the site of the old Palace of Westminster.
The Church of England controls 0.5% of England, including Paternoster Square - the home of the London Stock Exchange.
Danish fashion billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen is the UK’s biggest individual landowner. Numerous financiers, business people, and the rulers of Dubai have bought up land here. It is estimated this ‘new money’ accounts for 17% of the land owned. Homeowners hold just 5% of the land.
Down through the centuries, from the Norman Conquest to today, land has remained concentrated in the hands of a small elite. William the Conqueror declared all land belongs to the Crown, and parcelled it out to Barons and the Church, while keeping much for the monarchy. The 1086 Domesday Book was the first record of land ownership in England.
Land used by commoners for grazing and subsistence once covered around 30% of England, but its enclosure by the aristocracy has reduced it to just 3% of the country today.
In 1649, in the aftermath of the English Civil War, the Diggers movement, led by Gerard Winstanley, aimed to overturn ideas about the private ownership of land, declaring the Earth to be a “common treasury for all”.
For 20 years after the Second World War, councils were allowed to buy land cheaply, sparking the boom in council-house building. From 1979 publicly owned land such as playing fields started to be sold off.
The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 created a partial Right to Roam over around 10% of England and Wales, mostly in uplands and around coasts, as shown in the recent film The Salt Path.
Popular television programmes such as Location, Location, Location reflect the desire of people to buy their own property. Home ownership levels hit a peak in 2003, with 71% of homes in England owned outright or with a mortgage. Since then, it has been in decline and is currently at 62%, with more turning to renting.
Sources: Guy Shrubsole, author of Who Owns England? Sioned Haf, from research project Who Owns Wales? Andy Wightman, author of The Poor Had no Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland and How They Got It.
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