Sarah Jane Thirsk v Henry Stamford Thirsk (as executor and beneficiary of the estate of Henry Stamford Thirsk Deceased)

Hearing dates: 5 – 7 May 2026

APPROVED JUDGMENT

This judgment was handed down remotely at 10.30am on 22 May by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.

This judgment was delivered in public and may be published.

This matter has come before me as the final hearing of Claimant's application pursuant to the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (the ‘1975 Act’) for reasonable financial provision from the estate of Henry Stamford Thirsk (the ‘Deceased’). The Claimant is the Deceased's surviving spouse. They married on 30 March 2021, and the deceased sadly died on 20 April 2022. The Claimant and the Deceased had cohabited from some point in or around 2003, and both the active parties to the application acknowledge that the substantial period of prior cohabitation should be classed as a part of the marital relationship. The First Defendant is the Deceased's only child from a previous relationship. The Second Defendant was the Deceased's accountant, and he is joined in his capacity as one of the three executors of the Deceased's estate. He adopts a neutral stance in respect of the claim. The Third Defendant is a bank which no longer has any active role in these proceedings.

I have heard this matter over three days sitting in the Business and Property Courts at Leeds, between 5 and 7 May 2026. The Claimant has been represented by Mr Learmonth KC and Ms Webster, the First Defendant by Ms Reed KC and Mr Rees. I have heard oral evidence from the Claimant, from the First Defendant, and from Ellen Herd, formerly the office manager for the Deceased, and now acting in the same role for the First Defendant, on whose behalf she gave evidence. I have read witness statements from the Second Defendant, and from 2 witnesses for the Claimant who in the event were not called to give oral evidence.

The History. The Deceased was born in 1947. In 1984, he inherited a farm from his father. On 21 April 1990 the First Defendant was born – he is now 36. His mother and the Deceased were never married, but lived together until the late 1990s, when their relationship ended. The First Defendant then split his time between his parents' homes. In 2002, the Deceased, then in his mid-fifties, and the Claimant started a relationship, and although there is a disagreement about precisely when this developed into full cohabitation, it appears to have been most probably at some time during 2003. The claimant is now 47 years old, and so would have been under 25 when the cohabitation began.

The Deceased is described by his son, the First Defendant, as a farmer. In 1984 as explained he inherited acres of land around Pocklington, North Yorkshire, from his father, along with the farming business known as ‘H Thirsk & Son’. The will of the Deceased's father dated 13 July 1983 refers to around 183 acres of land to be directly inherited by the Deceased as a specific legacy, including Groves Farm, then a working farm with a farmhouse in which he lived. The Deceased was also granted an option to purchase any further freehold property farmed by the farming partnership if not otherwise disposed of by the will. The Deceased later exercised that option to acquire several hundred more acres of land around Pocklington.

From 1983 to 1990, land sales generated £870,000. In that period further land was purchased at Shiptonthorpe for £159,000. In 1988/89 a new local plan was put into place for Pocklington and the surrounding area which gave rise to significant development potential in respect of the Deceased's land. Between December 1990 and March 2001, land sales produced £5,460,270. Land purchases totalled £1,904,364. This would become the pattern of how the Deceased and his agents would manage his inheritance. On 28 July 1998 the Deceased became a director of Broadvale Developments Limited (‘Broadvale’), a property development company through which certain land held by him was to be redeveloped. The proceeds were partly reinvested in land purchases, including 160 acres in Burnby purchased in 2000, and in developing the farming business, as well as purchasing the Feathers Hotel in Pocklington as a hospitality venture for £885,000 in 2001, shortly before the Deceased's relationship with the Claimant began. The next land sale was of Whitefields Farm in October 2004 for £360,313. There was then reduced sales activity for some years, with sales from then until June 2011 totalling only a further £694,370.

The Deceased had therefore, I accept, received a significant amount from the sale of land before he met the Claimant, and had reinvested a considerable portion, including purchasing land which is now within the Feathers partnership. He had also established the pattern by which he would generate profits from his land during subsequent years. The Deceased and the Claimant initially lived at Groves Farm, where they stayed for around nine years. Although they were not then married, their subsequent marriage has rendered this property a home of the matrimonial relationship. After a couple of years of cohabitation, the Claimant gave up her job as a travel consultant, she says at the Deceased's request. It is accepted that she has not worked outside of the home since. There are no children of the marriage.

The Deceased developed the Feathers, which he had purchased in 2002, extending it from being a pub with rooms to a properly constituted hotel by the addition of new chalet accommodation in 2003, at the very outset of his relationship with the Claimant, and then added a function area and dining room in 2006, a first accommodation block extension in 2007, and a second in 2017. In November 2010, the Oddfellows Arms was purchased for £179,422, the first such purchase during the marital relationship. In 2012, the Deceased converted this into ‘Stamford's Grill’ to add to his hospitality business, and he later spent money renovating the property. An outbuilding was converted for function and conference facilities in 2015, and more accommodation was added. The deceased spent £167,976 on renovations to Stamford's Grill in 2016, and another £781,152 on a new accommodation block at the Feathers in 2018.

In 2012, the ‘East Riding Local Plan 2012–2029’ proposed changes to Council development policy, and this was eventually adopted in 2016. The Deceased and his agents, J.G.Hatcliffe & Partners, took advantage of this by the latter's applying for and obtaining planning permission for development of Groves Farm. The sale of land then gained pace from May 2013, and up to 2021, further planning permissions were obtained, and Groves Farm and neighbouring land at Burnby Lane were sold for residential development in phases. Groves Farm is now an estate of 200 houses, with a GP surgery and more. The Deceased obtained planning approval for a further five dwellings at Groves Farm in 2018, before selling them in August 2020.

I accept that the land sold for development during the marital relationship has comprised the majority of what the Deceased owned before that relationship began. Some of the capital proceeds were spent by the Deceased and the Claimant over time, and some were invested in improving his other land and acquiring more. In December 2014, the Deceased bought Glebe Farm, a 4-bedroom property in Everingham, together with surrounding land, for £1,985,572. The farmland surrounding Glebe Farmhouse was then added to in June 2016. The house and land are now valued at £2,519,000, and the Farmhouse remains the Claimant's home. Wold View Farm at Bolton was purchased in February 2015 for £435,000. Woodlands Farm was purchased in November 2016 for £851,788. After purchasing that farm the Deceased spent significant sums on erecting new pig sheds, for £528,559. Merton House Farm was bought in July 2017 for £918,500, and this is the First Defendant's current home. Little Groves was then purchased in February 2020 for £330,000.

For the most part, it is the Claimant's case that the Deceased did not actively farm these himself, but provided ‘bed-and-breakfast’ facilities for others' herds of pigs. She explains that he developed and improved these farms, adding extensive farm buildings, at substantial cost. The Deceased also added improvements to the farms that he inherited and still retains. Whilst the Deceased inherited some farmland at Bungalow Farm, the farmhouse and buildings were purchased later on, in January 2016. He further expanded that farm by 48.5 acres in July 2018, and also spent significant sums improving the buildings and resurfacing a road. Between 2018 to 2021 he spent £209,000 on an office, cattle sheds, a grain store, and tractor shed. Little Grange Farm has become what the Claimant describes as a ‘ conglomeration of crop storage barns, weighbridge, and grain drying facility together with pig farms’ compared to the bed and breakfast pig farm it had been at the outset of their relationship. However, it always remained the case that none of this would have been possible without the estate that the Deceased brought into the relationship, and the external factor of planning changes that paved the way for all of the...