With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Biggest survey of UK land ownership since William the Conqueror

A complete picture of who owns modern Britain is to be created as part of the biggest survey of land ownership since William the Conqueror commissioned the Domesday Book nearly a thousand years ago.

But the task is enormous as 40 per cent of land in England and Wales has not been registered by its owners. More than half of all rural land and rural buildings are unregistered...

English aristocratic families, including those of the Duke of Norfolk and the Duke of Bedford, who between them own 70,000 acres in the Home Counties, are...believed to have given details of their land ownership...

Since the time of William the Conqueror there have been various attempts to write a full account of the ownership of Britain. But it was not until the 19th century that the state began to take a serious interest in collating the details of the ownership of property...
Read entire article at Independent