Pippa Middleton Wins Fight to Block Public Path Through Estate

Pippa Middleton and her hedge fund manager husband, James Matthews, have succeeded in their bid to prevent the public from using a footpath running through their £15million country estate.

The Princess of Wales’s sister maintained that allowing public access across the property could put her family’s safety at risk.

The route crosses Grade I-listed Barton Court in Berkshire and has long been used by people from nearby Kintbury. Residents say it offers a safer way into the village than Station Road, a narrow route with blind bends, heavy traffic and no pavement.

Middleton and Matthews faced claims that her connection to the Royal Family had been invoked to support the effort to stop walkers using the path.

Local people said the estate’s former owner, the late Habitat founder Sir Terence Conran, had routinely kept the gates open, with the understanding that the route could be used as a public passageway.

However, soon after buying the estate for £15million in 2022, Middleton and Matthews, who is heir to a Scottish feudal title, fitted electric gates and placed signs at either end of the route stating: ‘Private: No Public Access’ and ‘No Trespassing’.

Thirty-five residents, supported by The Ramblers’ Association, asked West Berkshire Council to formally recognise the lane as a public right of way.

Matthews argued, however, that the route had not been freely used for the 20-year period required under the law.

And while Ken Taylor, the government-appointed planning inspector, ruled that the couple could not rely on privacy and security concerns, he said today that there was not sufficient proof that the path was freely used by walkers for 20 years. 

He overturned its designation as a public right of way. 

A spokeswoman for the couple said: ‘We are grateful for the careful consideration given to the facts and appreciate the time invested by all parties.’

Tony Vickers, a local Liberal Democrat councillor, said: ‘I am surprised and very disappointed that the inspector came down on the landowner’s side. After attending almost all the inquiry, I could not see any relevant argument put by Mr Matthews’ supporters.’ 

It was reported in May that locals claimed Ms Middleton was exercising the royal status of her sibling – Catherine, Princess of Wales – to suggest she and her husband deserve special treatment, owing to their need for privacy and security.

One angry local thundered to the Mail in April: ‘They’re not even the proper Royal Family.’

Neil Pike, the local ‘footpath secretary’ for ramblers, told the inquiry Mill Lane was ‘intrinsic’ to life in Kintbury.

‘Until recently I have never known Mill Lane to be closed for any reason,’ he said.

‘In all the time I have been footpath secretary no one has reported to me that they’ve been stopped or turned back while walking along Mill Lane.

‘If Mill lane is removed from public use then Station Road is the only alternative and does not bear thinking about.

‘I do not understand why the present owners are trying to close it when it has been used by the walking public for decades.’

But Paul Wilmshurst, the barrister representing Mr Matthews, said in a written submission that declaring the path a public right of way would ’cause very real practical [and] privacy difficulties and security issues’. 

He said: ‘The route is over land, which, at all material times, has formed and has had the local reputation as being the private drive to the house at Barton Court.’ 

Mr Matthews told the public inquiry: ‘There are implications for my family, due to their high public profile, which means there is a need for a higher level of security than would otherwise be the case.

‘Therefore to improve security for my family, before we moved in, I arranged for an electric security gate to be erected on the drive.’

He was supported by the widow of Sir Terence Conran, who sold him the estate after her husband’s death.

Lady Victoria Conran told the inquiry: ‘In the 30 years that I lived at Barton Court, I only ever saw one person using the driveway who should not have been there … Suffice to say, I never observed any organised groups of ramblers using the driveway.’ 

Mr Taylor, the planning inspector, said that there was evidence from at least 1983 of a ‘Barton Court Private Road’ sign on the path. Another image showed that by June 2020 the sign read ‘Barton Court Estate, No Through Road’. 

He concluded that the ‘low levels of use’ of the drive was not sufficient to demonstrate that the public were asserting a continuous right to use it as a footpath.