The English Land Registry, Trespass As Epistemic Access, and Enclosure By Aristocratic Memory

In 1925, the Land Registry of England and Wales was established. In the century since, historic land ownership data has become increasingly fragmented, while the cost of accessing all state-held land titles has from just £70 to £72 million (Cahill 2001; Shrubsole 2019). In the same time period, the English land question has narrowed considerably, resulting in a dearth of research and political discourse constrained by the commodification of land registration infrastructure (Massey and Catalano, 1978; Christophers 2018).

Title by registration acts as an “administrative archive” (Pottage 1994), rendering historical memory, social use and kinship ties irrelevant. Its development in Australia sought escape from Britain’s aristocracy, specifically patrilineal primogeniture (Bhandar 2018). This customary form of land transfer from father to son persists today, concentrating land ownership: 33-47% of land in England and Wales remains in their hands. As primogeniture does not trigger registration, 14% of land in England and Wales also remains unknown to the Registry (Shrubsole 2019).

This paper discusses my Master’s research into Right to Roam, an emergent land rights campaign which has made several interventions in the epistemic enclosure produced by land registration infrastructure in England. I show how the campaign circumvents state-backed land registration infrastructure with its own data and narratives, revealing the concentration of land ownership in England to be state-subsidied and colonially entangled. Coupled with organising mass trespasses, it not only reclaims public agency, holding large landowners accountable for illegal and extractive environmental management practices, but challenges the historic development of land rights that continue to organise property institutions and obfuscate elite coordination (Monteath 2021).

In doing so, I show how the campaign reveals colonial entanglements and state subsidisation of concentrated land ownership, challenging the historic development of private property rights that continue to organise land institutions in England.