Please note: This article appeared originally in the Longridge and Ribble Valley News, on 8th December 2010. It is reproduced here by kind permission of the proprietors.

Twelve months ago it was revealed that there was a new Lord of Bowland, after the ancient manorial title was bought anonymously at auction. It has since been revealed that the new lord is a university academic with a keen interest in Bowland. But he still wishes to keep a relatively low profile, as MIKE HARVEY reports.

MEET William Bowland, a feudal lord more interested in Bowland's future than in obsessing about its past.

Late last year, the headlines proclaimed Bowland had a new lord who had acquired the Lordship of Bowland - an ancient title dating back almost 1,000 years - for an undisclosed sum from Lord O'Hagan, a senior representative of the Towneley family.

The Towneleys had owned much of the Forest of Bowland up until the Second World War, having been Lords of Bowland since 1835.

Apparently, it was only through a chance discovery by a researcher that the Towneleys came to realise that they owned the title at all. Until then, it had been believed that the Lord of Bowland was the Duke of Lancaster (The Queen) whose father had bought several thousand acres (now known as the Whitewell Estate) in the late 1930s.

Journalists scrambled to track down the new lord. Under pressure, the Manorial Society, which represents Britain's 1,900 feudal lords and barons, revealed the 16th Lord of Bowland was a university don with historic family links to the area. But the society declined to name him.

Just before Easter this year the silence was broken when it was disclosed that he had chosen to exercise one of his ancient feudal rights and had revived the historic office of Bowbearer of the Forest of Bowland, giving the role to Robert Parker of Browsholme Hall. Parker's ancestors had once been Bowbearers - high-ranking ceremonial officers who attended the Lord of Bowland and bore his bow during hunting - but not for almost 150 years.

Yet, since that appointment, the 16th Lord has shunned personal publicity. Surely, the 16,000 folk who live in Bowland have a right to know his identity?

I determined to track him down to ask him what it meant to be a feudal lord in the 21st century and why Bowland needs a lord at all?

And he agreed to an interview!

"William Bowland" is an energetic and articulate man in his late 40s who speaks passionately about Bowland.

He talks in bewildering detail about the place-names of the Forest and the influence of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and even Welsh on their early development. He explains with pride his own ancestral links to Newton where one of his ancestors established the village's first nonconformist chapel in the late 1600s.

He is impatient with suggestions that his title is a vanity purchase.

"Vanity doesn't come into it. For me, this is about Bowland. a very special place I know and love. This is my personal stake in the community, its history and heritage. The Lord of Bowland no longer has any political role. He doesn't administer justice or manage the forest. The last of that died away in the 1920s.

But the future matters more than the past. If we're smart we should think of the Lordship of Bowland as a marketing opportunity."

I am refreshed by our conversation. William Bowland is a modern man, not some eccentric throwback who might be seen parading around in ermine or beating the bounds of his Forest.

"We can dismiss the Lordship as a hangover from a bygone age. Or we can celebrate it as a part of Bowland's heritage ... just as we might celebrate an historic landscape or a beautiful building. We should exploit the fact that Bowland has a Lordship that goes back a thousand years - an amazing fact - to help protect, preserve and where appropriate, promote Bowland in all its uniqueness.

Rightly, my success as Lord of Bowland will be judged by the contribution I make. Certainly, I feel I have a duty to serve the Forest community, to try and make a difference. But respect and trust don't come automatically - they must be earned.

What contribution might I make? In a sense, I am in the hands of others on this. But perhaps, if the community wishes, I might become a voice for Bowland, some sort of advocate. That is one option.

Or maybe a guardian of its heritagc. Or perhaps, even more excitingly, I couid help pioneer a new way of thinking about Bowland based on a reawakened sense of our history- a sort of 'nostalgia for the future'.

For instance, did you know that, in the 1930s it was common to describe Bowland as the 'Switzerland of England'? Not just because of its stunning scenery but also on account of the contentment of its inhabitants, their sturdy independence of spirit and general prosperity. Surely, it is my job to help keep traditions such as these alive".

I find myself cheered by what I've heard but I also know that I've failed my readers in one important regard. As a precondition of my interview, I promised to keep the identity of the publicity-shy Lord a secret ... at least for now.

* Many thanks to Martin Charlesworth, projects officer with the Forest of Bowland AONB, for his help in arranging this interview.

Information about the origin and history of the office of Lord of Bowland can be found in Wikipedia.