Meet the British inventor who now owns more land than the Queen

There’s money in selling vacuums then?

The billionaire inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner is fast becoming one of Britain’s biggest landowners and has just overtaken the Queen in the amount of acreage in England he owns.

How much has he ‘hoovered up’?

Sir James Dyson, 67, just spent some of his £3bn fortune on the 3,000-acre estate of Cranwell and Roxholme in Lincolnshire. The Sunday Times says he now owns a total of 25,000 acres – that’s 5,000 more than Her Majesty’s pile at Sandringham, Norfolk.

Quite a purchase

Yes. And Dyson’s growing portfolio is significant especially because he’s a self-made man. Most of the other big landowners in Britain are aristocrats and nobility, who would have inherited most – if not all – of their property.

It sounds like Dyson is really cleaning up

He is. As well as other acreages in Nocton, Carrington, and Dodington Park, Dyson boasts a Chelsea townhouse, a property in the South of France, and a place in Norfolk, where he was born.

So he’s got an affinity to his birthplace?

He said he feels “at home in the countryside”. As well as his technology business enterprise, Dyson is very fond of farming.

“I grew up in agricultural north Norfolk,” he explained. “As a schoolboy I used to spend my holidays working on local farms harvesting potatoes, sprouts, parsley and blackcurrants.”

So what next?

Through the James Dyson Foundation, the inventor helps fund design and engineering research. He also invests in agriculture and it looks like his new purchase is with farming innovation in mind. He didn’t leave any clues about buying more land though…

More: Meet Britain’s other first female bishop