The Stanley family may well be responsible for one of the most influential changes of heart in English history.

During the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, Thomas Stanley and his men switched their allegiance from Richard III to fight on behalf of Henry Tudor, a decisive move which saw the death of Richard on the battlefield and ultimately led to Henry being crowned king.

Backing the winning side paid off, with Thomas being named Earl of Derby and the family acquiring the Witherslack Estate in what is now south Cumbria in 1487.

Today the 800 hectare estate is managed by Nick Stanley and has diverse interests in property, tourism, agriculture, forestry and conservation.

The Victorian era Stanleys built the grand mansion of Witherslack Hall where they lived until it became a school during the Second World War. It has remained a school ever since with the family moving down the road to the more modest Halecat House. This is where Nick himself grew up with his parents Michael and Fortune.

“When I was a kid this was a working farm and the estate house had a maintenance crew of three, but when my father died 35 years ago it emptied out and it was stone dead really, which I found very unhappy,” he says.

Nick pursued a career as a theatre manager at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool before taking over the running of the estate and making it his job to bring life back to its courtyard, buildings, woodland, meadows and orchards.

He now splits his time between living on the estate and in Liverpool with his partner Cathy.

As well as managing the estate he also works freelance as a film accountant, keeping track of and querying invoices for large movie and TV productions.

"We've had to work and we've had to invest," he says.

"But it's basically about getting your head to the point where someone comes along with an idea and you say, okay, yes, and then, actually, you find yourself being able to use other people's energies.”

(Image: The Witherslack Estate)

Today the estate surrounds the village of Witherslack, extending as far west as Winster and the flanks of Whitbarrow fell in the east.

It comprises 35 houses which are rented out to local people, as well as well-loved nursery Abi and Tom’s Garden Plants, Halecat House and Moss Howe Campsite, which is also the location for four workshops.

Halecat House itself provides a base for a number of local artists and other businesses, while it is also hired out for events and rented as a four-bedroom self-catering property to visitors.

The woodyard next to the house has units which are let out to several local artisans, including a coppicer, furniture makers and a sculptor.

"We're now facing a point where people are pretty constantly coming and asking us if we have any workshop space and if we can find it for them we do,” says Nick.

“We're trying to be as diverse as we can.”

The copious amount of wood generated during management of the estate’s woodland is processed into timber at the woodyard’s sawmill. That which cannot be put to use in carpentry or joinery is sold as firewood.

The wood is also used to power the boiler which provides heating and hot water for the collection of buildings surrounding Halecat House and the house itself.

Woodland and farmland each take up about half of the area of the estate.

With agricultural subsidies increasingly being paid based on delivering environmental benefits, Nick says much of the farmland which is less productive will become focused far more on nature recovery.

Orchards will be restored on parts of the estate while other areas will become woodland pasture, with small numbers of cattle grazing among trees and hedgerows.

“I always claim that the woodland is the largest area of semi-natural ancient woodland in the North West of England, but that's because all the others are very small rather than because we're enormous,” says Nick.

The estate is in the process of progressively felling coniferous woodland to replace it with native species. “We go away then and see what comes back and protect anything that we want to keep,” says Nick.

"In working out how we farm here. I very much want to include extending the quantities of oak that you can grow. We think of an oak as a huge parkland spreading tree, which really has no timber usefulness at all but the French grow oaks like we grow conifers, close together so they grow straight. I'm really keen that we do some experiments with that because one view is that in the climate that we expect to have in 30 years’ time, oak will grow 50 per cent faster than it grows now. Oak sells for three times the price of anything else and that seems a fashion which endures.”

(Image: The Witherslack Estate)

As well as balancing the needs of the business and the environment, Nick says he has always been keen for the estate to help house people and to be a place where small businesses can prosper.

"Starting a business in the UK is hard enough anyway. Being young isn't exactly easy so if you are helpful, actually, it pays back resoundingly, because good, creative people are keen to be here.”

Aside from the campsite and the self-catering at Halecat House, all of the accommodation on the estate is long-term let to people living and working locally.

The 35 properties owned by the Witherslack Estate make up a considerable proportion of the 335 homes in the parish. "The last time I looked, Witherslack had the smallest proportion of non-permanently occupied houses in the whole of the national park which, when we're in the corner of the park closest to the M6, is something of which I feel extremely proud,” says Nick.

With three children between the ages of 24 and 34 Nick says his family are beginning to discuss succession planning and how the next generation can continue taking forward the estate and its diverse interests.

"I will pass the point in about six months where I will have managed it for half my time on earth,” says Nick, 70.

“I'm quite keen to not retire, because I bore very easily, but I would like to be a bit more selective about what I do.”