The Crown Estate and predecessors: Agricultural Estates Group and predecessors: Registered...

This series contains registered files produced by the various departments that have managed the Crown's agricultural and forest estates in England. The files deal with escheats, exchanges, purchases and sales of land, easements over Crown properties, land reclamation, diversification of land use and special features of estates, such as ancient monuments or archaeological sites, as well as general estate management policy.

For information on the appraisal and selection decisions applied to records in this series see Operational Selection Policy OSP 2, The Crown Estate, 1975-1985.

By former file reference within each accession

• Crown Lands, English Agricultural Group, 1925-1956
• Office of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues, 1851-1924
• The Crown Estate, Agricultural and Forestry Estate Group, 1983-1984
• The Crown Estate, Agricultural Estates Business Group, 1989-1995
• The Crown Estate, Agricultural Estates Group, 1961-1966
• The Crown Estate, Agricultural Estates Group, 1969-1973
• The Crown Estate, Country Estates Group, 1978-1983
• The Crown Estate, English Agricultural Estates Group, 1966-1969
• The Crown Estate, English Agricultural Group, 1956-1961
• The Crown Estate, Establishment, Finance and Agricultural Estates Group, 1973-1977
• The Crown Estate, Foreshore and Seabed, Agriculture and Forestry Estates Branches, 1984-1989
• The Crown Estate, Other Urban Estates, Establishment, Finance and Agricultural Estates Group, 1977-1978

from 2000 The Crown Estate

Topics

Ancient Monuments and Historical Buildings

Crown lands and estates

Farming

Even when managed as part of a single agricultural estates group, the Crown's agricultural estates in England and Wales have always been different in character. Welsh Crown agricultural estate land largely derived from unenclosed waste commons before 1983, when a policy of purchasing land in Wales was started. The English agricultural estate is much more mixed in origin and nature, and sales, purchases and exchanges of land have been a regular feature of the management of the estate.

Within The Crown Estate, managing the English agricultural estate has been the responsibility of a number of groups and branches, always containing a distinct agricultural estate management section. Until 1923 the estate contained a large proportion of forested land, but the bulk of this was transferred to the management Forestry Commission in that year.