Title to go under the hammer

The Lordship of the Manor of Rufford is for sale with a price tag of £7,750 through Manorial Auctioneers of London.

Rufford belonged to the Savile family who lived at Rufford Abbey until the late 1930s.

The sale includes the ancient Liberty — a bundle of rights covering 9,000 acres, making Rufford the largest Lordship in the county.

At the time of Domesday Book, compiled for William the Conqueror in 1086 as an inventory of the principal landholders, Rufford belonged to Gilbert de Ghent.

His grandson and namesake founded Rufford Abbey in 1148 and the Cistercian monks held the Liberty and lordship until the dissolution of the monastery by King Henry VIII in 1536. It was sold to the Earl of Shrewsbury who then passed it to his daughter, Mary, on her marriage to Sir George Savile in the 1540s.

Death duties forced the sale of Rufford in 1938 to Nottingham industrialist Sir Albert Hall who then sold it to Henry de Vere-Clifton.

The Liberty and Lordship now belong to a Lancashire antiquarian who acquired the de Vere-Clifton estate in 1978.

The new lord or lady of the manor can use the title on their passports, chequebooks and credit cards and is eligible for the membership of the Manorial Society of Great Britain.