Cheltenham: Where Clarkson Meets Covenants

This week’s Field Notes comes to you in the final stretch of the school holidays, right after the August bank holiday. It feels like a good moment for some “light relief”- so where better to look than the Cotswolds, which (if you believe the Daily Mail…) can be considered “Britain’s Beverly Hills”? That tabloid label made me smile. Yes, the rolling hills and golden cottages do attract celebrities, but beneath the glossy headlines lies a far more interesting world: the place where farmland, fame, and a few firm fences collide. Based in beautiful Regency Cheltenham, our offices are pretty close to the action too, so I’m taking the opportunity to explain what makes Cheltenham such a perfect location for those of us advising agricultural landowners and landed estates – and what it is that we do.

When talking farming, the Cotswolds and the media, kudos is due to Jeremy Clarkson (not a line I could have anticipated writing during his Top Gear tenure!). Due to his extensive efforts over the last five years, Clarkson’s Farm has achieved the seemingly impossible and has finally pushed The Archers off its longstanding perch as the city-dweller’s go-to farming reference and way to rationalise my practice. For at least the last decade, I’ve been asked, on average about once a week, whether my job is “basically The Archers with paperwork.” These days, if the last few months are any indication, the question is about twice as likely to be “so, like what a lawyer would do for Clarkson’s Farm?” Somehow Countryfile (which I’ve always rather enjoyed) never seems to get a look in… 

Boundaries and bales

One of the Cotswolds’ defining features is land — who owns it, where it begins and ends, and what happens when those boundaries blur. As an example of how this might look to a lawyer, imagine a celebrity newcomer.  Mr or Ms Superstar might feel the need to construct a sturdy new privacy fence, only to discover half of it sits on their neighbour’s field. Or a boundary hedge may have “drifted” over time, sparking a row that no glossy estate agent brochure quite seems to mention. My role? To help turn “that’s my strip of grass” into a civilised conversation rather than a tractor-sized feud.

Sometimes rural disputes paint the most vivid pictures. Real examples have included sheep wandering into the wrong orchard committing woolly (and often rather munchy) trespass, “fly grazing” ponies popping up in someone else’s field or paddock, or hay bales strategically stacked to mark contested ground. And yes, I’ve fielded questions like: “Can my neighbour block my right of way by parking their tractor across it every morning?” (Short answer: no. Longer answer: still no, but sometimes it takes a letter on headed paper to make that point stick.)

Rules, rods and red tape

Country life comes with its own regulatory quirks. Permits and licences are just as important in the Cotswolds and other countryside settings as they are in the city. Earlier this month, Foreign Secretary David Lammy learned that the hard way when he accidentally fished without a rod licence while entertaining US Vice President JD Vance, who was holidaying in the Cotswolds. An “administrative error,” apparently, but a potentially expensive reminder that even in bucolic settings, the small print matters. Slightly rubbing salt into the wound for Lammy, it’s also been reported that his trip wasn’t a successful one - the fish live on to swim another day… 

Succession and legacy

Beyond boundaries, some of the most sensitive cases we handle in and around the Cotswold involve succession and estates. Land here is rarely just an asset; it’s identity, livelihood, and legacy. Disputes over who inherits the farm, or how to divide land between siblings, can make Hollywood dramas look tame. Our role is to keep matters grounded (pun intended) and focused on solutions, so family farms survive for the next generation.

Why Cheltenham?

Cheltenham is the sweet spot. Close enough to the Cotswolds to understand its quirks, yet with plenty of rural professional expertise and a glossy Regency spa town setting. It’s a place where our lawyers can choose to live rurally or semi-rurally while still having a foot in the wider legal world.

So, whether you’re Kate Moss seeking peace in a converted barn, a Clarkson-esque farmer with shiny new machinery, or a family determined to keep your estate intact, we’ll raise our coffee to you. The countryside may not have paparazzi lurking behind every hedge (well, not usually), but it does have its fair share of legal drama. That’s where my team comes in - wellies metaphorically on, ready to navigate the fine line between bucolic bliss and boundary bickering.

Because in the Cotswolds, as in Beverly Hills, property really is all about location, location… and the small print.

If you’d like advice on boundaries, succession planning, rights of way, rural disputes, will challenges or trust disputes, our Cheltenham team includes transactional, advisory and dispute resolution specialists and is here to help, whether helping you to avoid disputes and mitigate risk, planning ahead for the future or helping resolve disputes and minimise negative publicity. And if the spotlight is already shining a little too brightly, our reputation management specialists are on hand to help steady the ship.

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Field Notes is Charles Russell Speechlys’ weekly agricultural law blog, sharing plain-English insight into the legal and policy issues affecting agriculture, agricultural land and rural business life. From hints and tips on avoiding agricultural disputes, pitfalls to keep an eye out when planning for tenancy or family agri-business succession, to the latest agricultural legislative or policy changes and the most interesting farm-related court decisions, Field Notes makes the complex more understandable, always grounded in the realities of life on (and off) the land.

Field Notes comes out every Wednesday. Previous editions of Field Notes include:

• Arbitration Act 2025: what it means for farmers, landowners and rural disputes
• Renters’ Rights Bill: what rural landowners need to know 
• Nature-friendly practice or unnatural risk: beavers, natural nuisance and measured duty, the rule in Rylands v Fletcher
• Adverse possession and estate administration: insights from Nazir v Begum
• Food Security is National Security: can regenerative agriculture help fortify the UK?