High-flying accountant who uprooted to Cornwall to run a glamping site is ... trends now
A high-flying accountant who uprooted to Cornwall to run a glamping site is locked in a £7.5m Shakespearean inheritance fight - compared by a judge to a 'modern day King Lear'.
Angela Heyes, 48, and engineer husband Neil, 46, left their lives in Surrey behind 10 years ago to move west on the promise that they would inherit Angela's parents' farm, which doubles up as a glamping business with on-site yurt.
But following the death of her former airline pilot father Patrick Holt in 2020, the couple are now fighting a bitter High Court battle with her mother, Sarah Holt, over who owns the family holding, near Truro.
The couple claim they left behind their high-flying jobs on the back of promises by both of Angela's parents that they would inherit the farm.
But Mrs Holt - backed by Angela's siblings - is fighting the claim, in a battle set to cost the family around £1m in lawyers' bills and which was said by a judge to be akin to a Shakespearean tragedy.
Angela Heyes, 48, and engineer husband Neil, 46, claim they left their lives in Surrey behind 10 years ago to move west on the promise that they would inherit Angela's parents' farm
The farm doubles up as a glamping business with on-site yurt, close to Devoran Creek
Having settled in Cornwall, Angela quit her job with professional services company Accenture in 2019 and took a local job 'at a reduced salary of £75,000 per annum,' she said, as well as roles as a Girl Guides Leader and school governor in her adopted home county.
Her husband, Neil, works full time on the farm, which includes a livery business and glamping site, complete with a 22ft yurt, in picturesque Devoran village, near Truro.
King Lear, written by Shakespeare in the early 17th century tells the story of a king of ancient Britain who divides his kingdom between his daughters, with tragic consequences.
And Judge Paul Matthews likened the case to the historical tragedy following a pre-trial hearing at the High Court.
'The proceedings are between a daughter and her husband on the one side, and her mother and her father's estate, supported by the daughter's two siblings, on the other,' he said.
'It is a tragedy for all concerned. This is not only because it splits a family, pitting a parent and two children against another child in a dispute about family property, like a modern-day King Lear.'
The court heard that Angela's father Patrick Holt and his wife owned farmland close to Truro, which included a substantial house, cottage, gardens and fields.
Angela and Neil claim that, in 2013, while visiting her parents in Cornwall, there had been a conversation about the future of the 60-plus acre site.
'During that conversation, my father told us that he wanted us to relocate to live nearby to the farm so that we could learn the ropes in relation to the farming business and take on the farm, and he specifically assured us that the farm would be ours one day and that he wanted it to stay in the family for future generations,' she said.
'After that formal conversation, Neil and I, together with our two young children...abandoned our plans in the Guildford area and arranged to move to Cornwall at
