Fir Hill Manor

Fir Hill Manor is a manor house near Colan, mid-Cornwall, England, dating from the 1850s. In 1994, it was the subject of a BBC Bristol documentary, which tells the story of former Newquay policeman Derek Fowkes as he searches for absentee landlord, John Paget Figg-Hoblyn. John Paget Figg-Hoblyn was the actual rightful heir to the estate after the death of his father, Francis, who died in 1965. The inheritance was not settled for over 40 years. The estate had shrunk to 1,000 acres (400 ha) estate during that period.

History

Early years

William Paget Hoblyn and three of his children in the 1860s

Fir Hill Manor is situated within the Fir Hill Woods, near Colan (not far from Newquay). The Hoblyns of Fir Hill and Drennick were descended from Robert Hoblyn – whose son married Judith Burgess, the heir and representative of Elizabeth Milliton – and Sir John Langdon Bonython. The dwelling's first owner, William Paget Hoblyn, lived there in 1856 with his wife, one son and four daughters. The manor was originally surrounded by 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) of land. William wanted his daughters to share in the inheritance of the estate. His son Ernest eventually died young. Only one sister, Rosalind, had children. She married a naval officer, Thomas Richard Figg, in 1884. They moved to Canada, and their children became Figg-Hoblyn. The remaining sisters neglected the estate. Rosalind's eldest son, Francis Figg-Hoblyn, wanted to restore Fir Hill Manor, but was not happy with its upkeep and eventually did not settle in England but remained the owner of the estate and manor house and passed it on to his son.

Inheritance mystery

Francis Figg-Hoblyn, owner of the Fir Hill Manor estate, died in 1965. Upon his death he willed the property to his son, John Paget Figg-Hoblyn. However, John Paget Figg-Hoblyn had returned to the United States without making it clear he had accepted the inheritance. For several decades John Paget's whereabouts were not exactly known.

In 1994, Fir Hill Manor was the subject of a BBC Bristol documentary, The Curse of Fir Hill Manor, which told the story of former Newquay policeman Derek Fowkes as he searched for John Paget Figg-Hoblyn. John Paget's cousin, John Westropp Figg-Hoblyn, a septuagenarian ex-farmer from Missouri, USA, and his wife Geraldine, had an idea that John Paget was living in a trailer park in the USA. The exact address of their residence was still not known.

The manor was valued at £5 million, as of 2007, and had a regular rental income of £88,000 a year from the five farms and six houses of the estate. The High Court was administering the estate through its Official Solicitor. The Manor was not in good shape even when Francis died in 1965. It was not in good shape when he inherited it from his aunts in the 1940s. But over the years, due to continued neglect, its status has further deteriorated. Francis Figg-Hoblyn and John Paget Figg-Hoblyn were unable to do anything to repair the Fir Hill Manor because of legal wrangling which continued until John Paget Figg-Hoblyn's death in 2011. In 2007 and 2013 the property was valued at £5 million though it was believed without the long drawn out legal process it could have been worth much more.

In March 2013 the Daily Mail reported that the 100-year-old original will (which entitled only the male heir to inherit) had been redrawn in accordance with a judgement passed by the Court of Protection in London, to enable the sisters of John Paget Figg-Hoblyn, Margaret and Anne, to receive an amount of £1.3 million each from the sale proceeds of the estate and the Fir Hill Woods. The closest surviving male heir, John Westropp Figg-Hoblyn, was to get only £130,000.

Finally, in 2011, the property which belonged to John Paget Figg-Hoblyn, and his father, Francis Figg-Hoblyn, was passed on to their next of kin after over 80 years of legal wrangling and the loss of the Fir Hill manor. Though John Westropp Figg-Hoblyn wanted to live in the manor and develop the estate, another distant cousin, Charles Hoblyn, bought 60 acres (24 ha) of the estate, including the dilapidated Fir Hill Manor. Some of the remaining land has been sold to tenants, and the rest is still up for sale. The Figg-Hoblyn family is retaining one historical cottage on the estate.