Mark Lindley‑Highfield of Ballumbie Castle has several historical and family connections with Bedfordshire.

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From the Tudor period, John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, is Mark’s 13th great‑granduncle, and from the Stuart period, William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford, is his 4th cousin eleven times removed. Mark’s family holds a portrait of the 1st Earl of Bedford.

 

Mark’s fifth great‑grandfather, Joseph Cooper of Tilsworth, leased Tilsworth Manor and its farm from the Page‑Turner baronets at the end of the Georgian era. Two of Joseph’s sons continued the tenancy. The family first took on the Mansion House in Tilsworth in 1732, though it later passed into other hands.