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Back to the wild
Knepp Estate’s journey from a struggling arable and dairy farm to a wild and vibrant
Sussex savannah incites equal parts awe and inspiration, says Carolina Beresford
K
nepp’s transformation over the past two
decades is nothing short of surreal. Many
will be familiar with the estate through the
active Knepp Castle Polo Club – home to some
of the most competitive low-goal polo in
England – which Sir Charles Burrell (left)
formed with Jo and Kim Richardson back in
1996. Indeed, it was Kim, says Burrell, who
persuaded him of the marvels of the sport.
‘Kim Richardson forced me onto a polo pony
that then nearly killed me and several other
people on the polo ground, but I never looked
back – it was the thrill of the chase,’ he recalls.
‘It was truly a wonderful 25 years before I retired
from it all. Jo and Kim ran the whole thing with
such flare and style and we created a wonderful
low-goal club with a couple of high-goal teams
in the mix. Now, Sarah Wiseman runs the club
with a new outlook and a new future.’
Polo will always have a place at Knepp,
but today we turn our gaze towards the
metamorphosis of the rest of the estate, and
wonder at how Burrell and his wife, award-
winning author and travel writer, Isabella Tree,
took 3,500 acres of unforgiving land and then
turned it into a thriving business responsible
for restoring our ecosystems.
When Burrell inherited the estate from his
grandparents in 1987, Knepp was a conventional
