Cornish villagers horrified as boxing promoter Barry Hearn tries to buy property

DING DING! It’s the fight of the century —between a traditional Cornish village and the boxing promoter who is looking to buy it.

In the red corner we have the residents of Trevalga, an ancient hamlet inhabited by proud Cornish people, spiritualists and artists, where there’s barely any phone signal, let alone 4G internet.

In the blue corner we have the legendary sports magnate Barry Hearn — ‘the Dagenham swaggerer’ thanks to his East End origins — whose son and business partner Eddie has become so famous online for his expletive-laden videos that people shout his catchphrases when they see him in the street.

Hearn’s interest in buying the £15.75 million Trevalga estate as a ‘family investment’ has set the villagers aquiver, fearful that an invasion by this celebrity dynasty will destroy their gentle way of life and that many of them — who are tenants — will be evicted.

After all, Hearn didn’t get where he is today — bright white Essex mansion with its own helipad, private lake, stables and swimming pool — without putting a few noses out of joint.

As chairman of Matchroom Sport, he conquered the worlds of snooker, darts, boxing, football and fishing, making a £158 million fortune in the process.

But in an interview with the Mail this week he was in mellow mood. The villagers ‘are 100 per cent secure’, he says. ‘The No 1 most important thing is no one — no one — would be evicted. I’m probably the best news these tenants have had because I want to keep it the way it is.’

Trevalgans are nevertheless squaring up to a man whose motives they clearly don’t entirely trust. Campaign leader Serena Partrick declares: ‘This is one of the last remaining Cornish communities and we need to protect it.’

This week she touted the idea of ‘passive means of preventing eviction such as joining hands in a ring around a property so bailiffs can’t enter’, having previously suggested ‘lying in front of diggers’ to do ‘whatever it takes’ to protect the historic area.

For this is only the latest saga in the Battle for Trevalga, in which one of Britain’s most remote coastal communities — hitherto untouched by second homes — has sternly resisted the fate suffered by so many other quaint pockets of Cornwall, which has priced out locals.

Nestled between the tourist towns of Tintagel and Boscastle, and hidden down a country lane just 500 yards from the cliffs of Cornwall’s rugged north coast, Trevalga is a time capsule which has remained undisturbed for generations.

There are no fudge pantries, no tacky gift shops, no kitsch cafes offering cream teas and certainly no Airbnbs.

Trevalgans take pride in sourcing their water from a well and the lack of street lamps means there is no light pollution to obscure breathtaking views of the heavens.

Until a few years ago, there wasn’t even a mains sewage system in this sequestered corner of the West Country.

The 80-odd residents of the 1,200-acre Trevalga estate are spread between its Manor House, 17 other homes and six farms, all of which were last owned by lord of the manor, Gerald Curgenven, who acquired the estate for £14,000 in 1934.

Before his death in 1959, Curgenven bequeathed the estate to Marlborough College — whose former pupils include the Princess of Wales and Princess Eugenie — the school where he had been both a pupil and teacher.

But Curgenven had one condition: that the estate should be ‘preserved . . . as far as possible and not sold or broken up’, ensuring ‘the village and manor as a whole should be kept in the same character as far as is possible’.

However, in 2010, in a pivotal chapter in Trevalga’s history, the Wiltshire public school attempted to dispose of its nest egg for £10 million. This sparked a spirited and victorious campaign against the sell-off by the estate’s tenants. A commemorative painting of a ‘bonfire beacon’, lit by the villagers on the night of the victory, has hung in the centre of the mildew-ridden parish hall ever since.

In the intervening 12 years, life in Trevalga was back to its sleepy pace. But in June, villagers received letters informing them that their homes would soon be sold — as part of a decision by the college to sell the Manor of Trevalga, this time for £15.75 million.

This created renewed alarm as a dozen households are on ‘assured shorthold tenancies’ — meaning new landlords can evict without reason as long as they give notice, which can be as little as eight weeks.

Residents are also dismayed by the language employed by high-end estate agency Savills in the sales literature. It not only says the ‘ring-fenced’ estate in a ‘spectacular’ and ‘highly popular’ location offers ‘endless amenity and leisure opportunities’, but suggests that new owners may want to pursue ‘redevelopment’ and ‘further income-generation’.

In August, determined to defend their homes, residents greeted one prospective investor who arrived by helicopter with a giant sign reading ‘Illegal Sale’ as he came in to land. But now Hearn has entered the ring, the scene is set for a culture clash of huge proportions.

Born on a council estate, he went on to become a pioneer of the World Snooker Championship, chairman of Leyton Orient FC, head of the global Professional Darts Corporation and promoter of boxers including Frank Bruno and Chris Eubank.

After 40 years at the top of the sporting world, he is now minded to enjoy the fruits of his labours, including leisure activities such as racehorse breeding and exotic travel. And now the man who retired last year at the age of 73 is looking to add their idyllic patch of Cornwall to his portfolio.

‘This would be a generational asset. It’s a beautiful piece of old England that needs development,’ he tells me. ‘It’s a big number for us as a family — it’s a lot of money for us. I’ve got people that can arrange it so everyone can live their normal lives there without any inconvenience. Everyone there is secure. Does that mean I’m not going to convert a barn to another house? No, I probably will in time. That’s the attraction to us as a family in the first place.

‘There are two empty properties there, [we can] either rent them out, sell them or use them for holiday lets. We’re not going to change them or use them for camping sites. There’s not going to be any development other than tarting them up, improving what’s already there.’

Hearn, who has visited Trevalga twice and introduced himself to its residents, says he was smitten with the ‘beautiful’ hamlet and relished the coastal walk between Tintagel and Boscastle. ‘It is unique,’ he said. ‘If you’re from where I’m from and you see somewhere like that you think, “Ooh, I like this.” It’s absolutely stunning.’

The Battle for Trevalga campaign is reserving judgment — for now. ‘We hope someone making promises such as Mr Hearn’s — that the villagers will be protected — would sign legally binding documents to that effect,’ 38-year-old Partrick told me this week.

A Trevalga native, she was born in a house so remote it could only be accessed by foot along a mud track. She now works as a visitor assistant at the nearby Tintagel Castle, living a quiet family life with her mother Lyn Lockyear, 71, her adult brother and sister, and two nephews. ‘This is my sanctuary and I’ve been calling it that since I was 16,’ she says, as we walk among the pretty cottages.

‘Mr Hearn has talked about the village being a “generational buy”,’ she adds. ‘That raises questions about how long Trevalga would be safe without the protections of a trust. Then it would be an inheritance and the next person in line could do what they want with it.

‘It’s lovely to hear the right things, but there should be legal backing behind them.’

This ‘generational buy’ would eventually pass down to Barry Hearn’s adult children, Katie and Eddie. Despite Barry’s glittering career, he is now in danger of being eclipsed by 43-year-old Eddie, a charismatic boxing kingpin who promotes fighters including former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.

He has converted land behind the Matchroom Mansion into a boxing arena called ‘Fight Camp’, and last year father and son held an official world title boxing match there complete with lasers and fireworks set against the backdrop of the Canary Wharf skyline. It couldn’t be further away from the cloistered world of the Trevalga residents, who spend their days farming, painting, gardening and taking coastal walks.

But could Manor House, the jewel in the crown of the Trevalga estate, one day become a Madison Square Garden-style location for global boxing events?

Half a mile away from St Petroc’s Church in the centre of the village, down a winding private road, is a sprawling, secluded granite house, with unspoilt views across the Atlantic. ‘Eventually, one imagines the Manor House — which is not listed — will be knocked down and a beautiful place put up there overlooking the Cornish coast,’ Barry said this week.

‘Now whether that’s rented out, or sold, or occupied by us as a family, who knows? We have other properties around the world that we like. It’s not going to be our home — if we get up there three times a year that’s good for me.’

The Manor House — highly coveted thanks to the right it confers on any buyer to transform it into a home of their own with magnificent sea views — is occupied by fantasy-world artist Peter Pracownik, 70, his wife Nicola, 44, and their sons Oisin, 25, and Arthur, eight. They have lived there for 26 years but Mr Pracownik appears remarkably sanguine about the Hearns taking over.

‘The whole sale hangs on Manor House,’ he tells me, clutching a steaming mug of tea and perched on a piano stool, surrounded by guitars. He loves the views from the property and ‘the sense of community which is so hard to find nowadays’, adding: ‘The people here are my family. Trevalga is a very peaceful, very ancient place and its history goes as far back as the Domesday Book.

‘But this place needs a lot of work — it needs pulling down. The trustees have been letting it crumble. Barry Hearn and the trustees have said the place needs to come down and that they will rehouse me in the village. I said, as long as we stay in the village — and not in a shed — that will suit me fine.

‘There’s a lot of Chinese whispers about Barry Hearn and what he will do. The villagers don’t want celebrities here. But times change, you’ve got to move on.’

Among other villagers, the jury is out. ‘We would accept Barry and trust him,’ says artist Rosalind Thomas, who has lived in Trevalga with husband Chris for 50 years. ‘But we hope he doesn’t change the village and add holiday homes. I met my husband in art school and we both loved the sea.

‘We came here when we were very young and our children were born here. We’ve been painting this coastline all our lives.’

She adds: ‘My husband and I accept Barry. But others do not feel the same. Up until now our village has been united on the issue.’

For their parts, the trustees and Marlborough College, which charges £43,000 per annum in fees and has millions of pounds worth of assets, insist that ‘the care of the Trevalga community has been, and will continue to be, borne very much in mind’, and that the village will not be broken up.

The trustees add that proceeds from the estate will go primarily to Marlborough College, as Gerald Curgenven would have wanted, and that a smaller share will go towards funding bursaries for gifted pupils from Cornwall.

Barry Hearn is sending representatives to Trevalga next week, and this month he will meet the trustees. It is only then that he will decide whether to make an offer.

Last week there was a crunch meeting of the locals, who have launched a crowd-funder petition to ‘Save Trevalga’ — but are still torn on their official stance on Hearn’s potential purchase.

Residents of Trevalga may be on the ropes, but they’re not out of the game yet.

As posters throughout the village defiantly state: Where there’s a will, there’s a way.