A place where for more than a thousand years all the houses have been owned byone person, writes Barry Shurlock.

THERE was a time when country villages were treated like stocks and shares, to be bought and sold and run for the profits that could be made from rents. Owners rarely lived in them and often did not even visit them.

The survival of such a village into the present century, still owned by one person is therefore surprising. That village is Linkenholt in the North Hampshire Downs, alias the Hampshire Highlands, alias the southern edge of the North Wessex Downs AONB.

And the owner is Stefan Persson, the Swedish billionaire owner of the clothing chain H & M, who in 2009 bought the entire village (except the church) from the Herbert and Peter Blagrave Charitable Trust for a reported sum of £25 million.

He is the latest of a long line of owners. Between 1091and the 1540s it was the abbot and convent of St Peter’s, Gloucester. Later in 1680 it was sold to a wealthy Amsterdam merchant who gave it to relatives, John and Mary Worgan. It was held for the next 200 years by the Worgan family and then the Colsons of Dorchester, who entered the frame in 1760 at Andover, when the Rev. Thomas Colson married his second wife Jane Worgan, sister of the rector of Linkenholt.

The present church was built in 1871, at the same time as a tiny one-room school, apparently from “left over” materials. Both buildings are decorated with shepherd’s crowns – fossil sea urchins – collected from the fields. In 1886, during the great agricultural depression, a Dorchester bank foreclosed on the owner, Thomas Morton Colson, who went bankrupt.

In the 1920s the estate was bought by civil engineer Roland Dudley, who had worked in India. His engineering came to the fore in 1935, when Linkenholt, acquired a modern style of combine harvester – said to be the first in the country – a Holt model (not related to Linkenholt) from North America.

Engineer Dudley made improvements to the bale-sledge (which takes the finished bales) and also in the mid-1950s served as chairman of the Humane Traps Advisory, for which he later received an MBE. There were problems, as one report noted: “The committee has already a number of traps under examination. While some offer a prospect, some are, I am afraid, so humane that they do not catch rabbits at all.”

The Dudleys lived in the existing manor house, rebuilt in 1910 after a disastrous fire which destroyed the former house. It had its own ballroom and in 1928 pioneered double-glazing. They were the grandparents of the novelist Dame Rose Tremain, who came to stay for the holidays and has written of idyllic times, tinged with sadness, in Rosie: Scenes from a Vanished Life.

The Dudleys lost one of their sons from a burst appendix at Harrow and their other son, Michael, who was in line to take over the estate, was killed by a sniper’s bullet at Fürstenau, Germany, on April 8 1945. The Dudley era is still remembered in the village, which until recently was occupied almost entirely by people who worked on the estate. Now the land is rented out and few of the residents work for the estate.

There are three artists in the village, including Suzie Masser-King, who moved on from a career as a master saddler after a riding accident. She holds a Diploma in Genealogy from the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies and during her studies discovered that the population of the village had halved over the last century.

Linkenholt, a village of only 22 houses, including the manor house, has changed dramatically, but still has a strong sense of community. Its heart is the cricket club, whose pavilion was built as the village reading room. Its secretary for the last 74 years (yes!) is Mrs Elsie Smith, who has lived in the village all her 87 years. The club was in the Hampshire League for 31 years until a lack of players forced it to leave in 2009.

Her father was a keen player but in 1936, when she was three, he collapsed at the wicket and died in the pavilion. In 1939 when the school closed she was one of only five remaining pupils, who had to walk two miles to school in Vernham Dean. After a long fight, with help from Roland Dudley, the county eventually provided a taxi.

Stefan Persson has a grand house in Ramsbury, Wiltshire, and his company, Ramsbury Estates, which owns more than 19,000 acres, is based at Axford, near Marlborough. As well as farming and brewing it profits from country shoots. The Linkenholt estate is owned by a company based in Luxembourg, Ramsbury SáRL.

Persson has visited Linkenholt and spoken to the residents, saying that he intends to keep it as it is – and he has so far kept his promise. Links with Sweden have in the past brought Swedish royals and Frida of ABBA to the village. Asked to comment on the present owner, Mrs Smith said: “He’s fine”.

The Hampshire Record Office has a large collection of material on Linkenholt. For more on Hampshire, visit: www.hampshirearchivestrust.co.uk.

 

By Barry Shurlock

barryshurlock@gmail.com