More than 25,000 supporters helped conservation charities secure the Rothbury Estate, giving a Northumberland landscape a future centered on wildlife, farming and local people.
People from the UK and more than 50 other countries backed the effort. After a two-year appeal, The Wildlife Trusts and Northumberland Wildlife Trust announced on October 30, 2026, that the purchase of the entire estate was complete.
The achievement protects an opportunity as much as a place. The land already supports important wildlife. Now its new owners can plan restoration across an estate kept together, rather than divided among multiple buyers.
Featured photograph: Archival location photograph: the Simonside Hills, included in the Rothbury Estate purchase. This is not a photograph of a newly restored landscape.
Photo: Ed Jennings, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Photograph reproduced without editorial alteration.
A two-year appeal brought supporters together
The original purchase announcement in October 2024 set out a two-phase agreement. The charities bought the western part, including the Simonside Hills, and launched a £30 million appeal to secure the rest.
Keeping the estate intact was part of the purpose. The announcement connected nature recovery with public access and a sustainable future for local farmers.
The completion announcement shows how many kinds of support made that possible. Gifts from the public raised more than £17 million. Charitable foundations, major donors and government funding also contributed.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded about £5 million, while Defra pledged £1.94 million. Local supporters included a cycling club, a Women's Institute group and a guitar shop. Sir David Attenborough also backed the campaign.
The charities said they used a low-interest loan to bridge the short-term gap between pledged funds still to arrive and the target. The estate was secured through that wider funding effort, rather than public donations alone.
Wildlife already has a home here
The estate spans about 3,800 hectares in Northumberland, England. Its former owners were the Percy family, the Dukes of Northumberland, according to the Wildlife Trusts' estate overview. That long aristocratic history does not make it a Scottish royal estate.
What gives the purchase its conservation importance is the range of habitats already present.
The Wildlife Trusts' wildlife account identifies curlews, snipe and lapwings in the uplands and red squirrels in the woods. Mountain bumblebees are also among the species recorded on the estate.
Atlantic salmon and critically endangered eels use its rivers. Riverside woods support summer breeding birds including redstarts and pied flycatchers. Merlins, Britain's smallest falcon, are another part of the landscape's wildlife.
Photo: Charles J. Sharp, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph reproduced without editorial alteration.
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The aim is to protect those living habitats and help them recover. Completing a land purchase is a concrete step toward that work, but it is not evidence that every species has already increased.
Farms remain part of the future
This project is also about people whose livelihoods depend on the land.
In its farming and land-management plans, the Wildlife Trusts say sheep and cattle grazing will remain important. They intend to support tenant farmers and develop nature-friendly practices on farms they manage directly.
Planned changes include adjusting grazing and exploring opportunities for richer meadows, more native woodland, wetlands and river corridors. These are management intentions, with work to be developed over time.
The approach connects conservation with a working countryside. The charities want wildlife recovery to support sustainable farming businesses and the local economy, while respecting the area's rural traditions.
A landscape with human history, too
The National Lottery Heritage Fund's project account highlights more than wildlife. It describes prehistoric burial cairns, ancient cup-and-ring-marked rocks, an Iron Age hillfort and the remains of a fortified farmstead.
It also identifies improved access and pathways as part of the ambition, so more people can explore the landscape and its heritage.
Photo: Mike Quinn, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Photograph reproduced without editorial alteration.
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For local communities, conservation here includes looking after places where natural and human history meet. Work with farmers and residents is part of the project, rather than a task to consider only after restoration plans are settled.
The purchase opens the next chapter
The Wildlife Trusts envision Rothbury at the heart of a 40-mile nature corridor, stretching from Druridge Bay toward the border uplands at Kielderhead and Whitelee. That remains a broader vision for connected landscapes.
The purchase itself is now complete. Turning that opportunity into lasting recovery will require continued care, surveys and land management.
Thousands of people helped secure the land. The next measure of success will be what happens on it, for the wildlife already there and the communities who will help shape its future.