‘We’re sick of them! Women who waged bitter five-year backyard warfare over 1ft of land referred to as ‘bonkers’ by neighbours who ‘needs they’d BOTH transfer out’

For just one foot of land, two women have spent five years embroiled in furious back garden arguments, expensive court room battles and now, for one at least, the prospect of an actual siege against council bailiffs. 

Perhaps then it’s no wonder that the well-heeled neighbours of Jenny Field and Pauline Clark wish they’d both move out and give them all some well earned rest. 

The aggressive dispute centres on a narrow and contested strip of land between the pair’s bungalows in Poole, Dorset. 

It concerns the placement of a party fence put up by Mrs Clark in 2020. Mrs Field claimed her neighbour moved the fence 12ins onto her land when it was installed. 

However, this week neighbours of the feuding Dorset pair told the Mail they were relieved a winner had finally been declared in their own war and said they were looking forward to waving Mrs Field goodbye when she is evicted on January 26.  

The grandmother, 77,  who has defiantly claimed she is ‘not leaving until she dies’, has been served a writ on her £420,000 bungalow by council bailiffs after ignoring a court-imposed deadline to settle a £113,000 legal bill with neighbour Mrs Clark.

The row with Mrs Clark, 64, ended up in the High Court last month where a judge approved her eviction. 

Court bailiffs subsequently visited Mrs Field at her home on the outskirts of Poole in Dorset to deliver the notice that they will take possession of the property on January 26 . 

When the Mail visited her bungalow this week she defiantly declared: ‘I can promise you I’m going nowhere. The only way I’m leaving my beautiful home is in a box’ – to the despair of her neighbours. 

Indeed, the war raging between the two neighbours in the close is on everyone’s minds.

‘It’s absolutely bonkers,’ said one, who lives opposite the feuding pair. ‘They’ve been at it for five years now and we’re all sick of it.

‘It’s mental that someone is going to have their home seized because they both refuse to settle a row over a foot of land between their properties. What’s the world coming too?’

Another said: ‘The pair of them are as bad as each other, I wish they’d both move out.’

And a weary third neighbour in the close opined: ‘For goodness sake it’s Christmas. Can’t they just kiss and make up and go into 2026 with all this behind them? It’s all anyone’s been talking about in this neighbourhood for years now.’

The two women fell out over a 1ft strip of land between their two bungalows.

Mrs Field hired her own contractors two months later and had the 6ft fence taken down and repositioned to reclaim ‘her land’ sparking five years of furious rowing. 

Mrs Field insisted that, contrary to her neighbour’s claim that her fence encroached on her land by a foot, Mrs Clark had instead ‘grabbed’ 12 inches of her land.

And, she revealed, not only is she launching an appeal against the seizure of her home, she is also counter-suing Mrs Clark for £250,000 in damages for the costs and stress associated with fighting her through the courts.

‘What this woman has put me through for the past five years is unspeakable.

‘I nipped out to the local post office one afternoon in 2020 and when I got home, she’d got her contractors to reposition the boundary fence between our properties about 12 inches over on to my land.

‘It was all because she’d had a huge extension built at the back of her property and it made her side access a foot narrower, so rather than buy a new side gate to fit the narrower passageway, she decided to take a foot of my land from front to back.

‘When I complained, she countered by claiming I’d been the one who’d moved the boundary a foot on to her land. It was completely ridiculous but in the years that followed it got worse and worse.

‘She went legal and because I had no money to defend myself, we’ve ended up in a situation where a High Court judge has ordered the seizure of my lovely home.

‘I knew about the court hearing but there was no way I could attend anyway because I was looking after a friend’s Labrador dog and I wasn’t going to abandon him for the day. 

‘I don’t have a car so it would have meant a seven-hour round trip on public transport and three hours in court.

‘I don’t work so other than my modest pension I have no real income, certainly not enough to be able to afford more solicitor and barrister fees. 

‘I’ve spent thousands over the years on this dispute and I was told I’d have needed another £10,000 to fight this High Court case.

‘Unfortunately I just don’t have that kind of money. I’m divorced and I live alone.’

Driving into the seemingly-peaceful cul-de-sac on Dorset’s south coast offers no clues to the troubles seething behind the clipped laurel hedges.

Neat driveways are lined by Christmas lights and decorations can be seen behind the curtains. In all, Dean Close appears to be the embodiment of the Season of Goodwill.

For Mrs Field, at least, there is little prospect of any kissing or making up in the near future. ‘My neighbour has done her best to ruin my peace and now she’s trying to have me evicted from my own home, my sanctuary,’ she said.

‘I absolutely will not be leaving here and furthermore, I’m going to have my day in court soon when I successfully sue her for £250,000 in damages for the years of stress and aggravation she’s cost me.

‘I’ve got the energy and patience to see this over the line and I’m not giving up. She can go to hell.’

But as things stand, despite Mrs Field having applied to have the seizure order suspended pending an appeal, bailiffs are now set to evict the pensioner on January 26, when the locks will be changed on the cul-de-sac property she bought for £270,000 in 2016. It will then be listed for sale.

The proceeds will be used to pay Mrs Clark’s legal bill following the prolonged court case.

Mrs Field has launched a desperate last minute bid to have the eviction suspended.

She claims the eviction notice is invalid and alleges Mrs Clark had trespassed onto her land when building the fence.

A court hearing will take place in the new year to listen to her arguments.

Mrs Field said: ‘I am not moving. This is my home and I have paid for it. She (Mrs Clark) has no right to my property.

‘They want to evict me from my home but they can’t do that, I have got human rights. I haven’t done anything wrong. All I have done is taken her fence off my land and given it back to her and put up my fence on my own land.’

In September District Judge Ross Fentem ruled in favour of Mrs Clark over the matter.

He said Mrs Field had ‘no reasoned basis’ for her claims and ordered her to pay Mrs Clark’s legal fees of £113,266.

Mrs Field was given a deadline of December 6 to pay but she failed to do so.

As a result Mrs Clark’s solicitors went back to Bournemouth County Court to successfully apply for a notice of eviction.

Mrs Clark, a widow, said: ‘This has been going on for six years in January.

‘I’ve been living a nightmare.

‘The judge gave her three months (to vacate) but it’s a waste of three months. I’m worried they will never get her out.’

Mrs Clark said she has undergone private counselling to help her through the ‘horrendous’ situation with her neighbour.

Anna Curtis, Mrs Clark’s solicitor, has previously said there was ample equity in Mrs Field’s property for her to pay the debt and still be able to buy a comfortable retirement property mortgage free and and have cash leftover.

In the legal papers served on Mrs Field, it states that she will be allowed time to move her possessions out on January 26 after the bailiffs turn up.

She has been given advice about speaking to the local council’s housing department to be rehomed and the Citizens Advice Bureau.