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, awardwinning 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
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