PROMOTION Thrings meets... Esther Fernandez-Llorente of Pittleworth Manor Farm

ittleworth Manor is a Grade II* Company in 1915 making planes for the Francisco and I work as a team, and it’s listed house in ’s Admiralty. The company was a major not a nine-to-five role. It’s everything P Test Valley. Owner Esther player in the aviation industry for the from filling in cattle passports, to tax Fernandez-Llorente talks to next forty years; it’s probably best re- planning, to sorting out a tenant’s central Rachel Brooks of Thrings about running membered for the Fairey Swordfish, heating. We have three children under the estate and her family’s involvement the aeroplane that took on and crippled four so it’s busy but it’s such a privilege. I with early aviation. the German Bismark in 1941, always knew this would be a wonderful and the , a model for Con- environment for children to grow up in. WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT corde which broke the world air speed THE HISTORY OF THE ESTATE? record (over 1,000mph) in 1956 a few DID YOU ALWAYS INTEND TO Apparently there’s been a house here months before my grandfather died. MANAGE THE ESTATE? since the time of Edward the Confessor I had to make a decision about the farm but this house is partly medieval and BUT YOUR GRANDFATHER’S in my early twenties. It was put up or partly Queen Anne. What really makes ACHIEVEMENTS DIDN’T shut up and I’ve never been much good it special are the Tudor murals that were STOP THERE? at the latter. It was always going to be a found hidden under panelling in 1926 in He was the head for the British Air huge challenge, but I was determined what is now the dining room. One wall Commission in Washington during to make a success of it. You have to shows stylised pomegranates, the other the Second World War, buying think very long-term in landownership. a marvellously detailed depiction of the aeroplanes which, of course, Britain You’re never too young to think ahead. Dives and Lazarus story from the Bible. was desperately short of then. It’s a The house was part of the Hildon estate, fascinating story and very much on LASTLY, I UNDERSTAND YOU which my grandfather, Sir Richard my mind because his biography, The WRITE A BLOG? Fairey, bought to add to the Bossington Man Who Built the Swordfish, is being I got my PhD in Victorian literature estate after the Second World War. The published this month. It was written from the University of Southampton estate was split in 2011 and we became by Adrian Smith, a history professor and read history at Oxford. I love Pittleworth Manor Farm. at the University of Southampton, and writing, and the blog (www.thecoun- with the Fairey Aviation Company tryreader.co.uk) is effectively an outlet. being partly based at Hamble, there Farming, children and managing an are lots of Hampshire connections. My estate seemed good topics to write grandfather said the Test Valley was ‘the about. The next Archers? More like the loveliest place on Earth’. As a family we Forsyte Saga with tractors! must all agree on that because we don’t seem to move far.

RUNNING THE ESTATE MUST SIR RICHARD FAIREY AS IN KEEP YOU VERY BUSY? FAIREY AVIATION? We have tenanted properties, a herd Yes. He got his start making model aero- of South Devon cattle, fishing, arable, planes and founded the Fairey Aviation renewables and woodland. My husband

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