THE long-running saga over Yorkley Court Farm took another twist this week, with a legal firm launching a search for surviving descendants of former owners and tenants who lived there as far back as the 1700s.

A ‘public notice’ carried in the October 5 edition of the Review seeks any surviving family members connected to 23 deceased people with links to the Grade II-listed farm building and lands.

The 180-acre farm was the scene of the eviction of eco-community farm squatters in March 2016, after an occupation of nearly four years.

It followed the sale of the estate by trustees to local businessman Brian Bennett.

The latest news of the legal search caused heated debate on social media about what lay behind it, with notices placed in newspapers as far away as Scotland, Liverpool, Bournemouth, London, Norfolk and Southend, where deceased family members are known to have lived.

Descendants of former estate owner Rev Thomas Packer, who died in 1821, are among those being sought, alongside his daugher Elizabeth Cholditch and tenants of the farm from the early 1900s after it had been placed in trust.

Sources connected with the property say they believe the search is the final legal requirement in disposing of the proceeds from the sale of Yorkley Court Farm.

And if no one comes forward to make a lawful claim, then the money will in all probability pass to the State.

During their occupation, the eco-farmers said they had traced the lineal descendants of the last known owner of the farm with the help of a genealogist.

In March 2016, the month of the two-day-long eviction, a statement appeared on the Yorkley Court Community Farm (YCCF) website purporting to be from “the rightful owners of the property”.

The online statement said: “Unfortunately, despite the trustee of the estate knowing of our existence, the sale was allowed to complete and furthermore none of the rightful owners have received any proceeds from this sale.”

According to YCCF, tenant farmers tried to buy the estate from the mid-1990s, but admitted defeat and left their home of a century in 2004.

After that, the farm buildings fell into a state of disrepair before the group of “sustainable farmers” moved onto the site and launched YCCF.

The group said that the property and farmland was registered in 2013 as a ‘Possessory’ title with the Land Registry by Mr Richard Tolson, a solicitor estate trustee.

Any descendants with a claim on the sale of the estate are asked in the public notice to contact solicitor Mr Michael Coughlan of Langley Wellington Solicitors of Royal House, 60 Bruton Way, Gloucester GL1 1EP, quoting reference MC/MS/B5031.1 by December 14.

A request for further information was made to Mr Coughlan, but no comment had been received by the time the Review went to print.

Mr Bennett was also asked to comment, but was said to be out of the country this week.

The notice seeking descendants with a “legal or beneficial interest in the property Yorkley Court Estate” was published under the Trustee Act 1925 section 27.

After December 14, the notice says the trusts concerning the proceeds of sale of Yorkley Court Estate may be distributed in proceedings brought by Richard Tolson and Philip Day in the High Court of Justice.