In 2021, James Middleton and his then-fiancee Alizee purchased a £1.45 million home in Bucklebury, just a short distance away from Carole and Michael Middleton’s manor home (which was purchased, at least partially, by Prince William). I had significant questions at the time about how James could afford that kind of real estate, especially given that he’s run three different businesses into the ground and squandered millions in investment. Skip ahead to 2023, and the Middletons’ Bucklebury-based business Party Pieces went belly up in spectacular fashion, leaving a trail of financial destruction in its wake and over £3 million in debt, never to be repaid. Many of the Middletons’ debtors are in the Berkshire area too. Last fall, a mysterious poster campaign started in Bucklebury – someone was hanging up laminated posters calling out the Middletons for their fraud and grift. Well, all of that is backstory for this extraordinary news in the Independent – apparently, James Middleton has been engaged in a years-long beef with his Bucklebury neighbor, and it’s all spilling out in the media. Local law enforcement is involved too. Some highlights:
James Middleton, 37, responded to The Independent’s enquiry about the dispute, which follows accusations that his family farm in Berkshire, just a stone’s throw from Kate’s childhood home in the rural idyll of Bucklebury, is generating noise and light pollution. David Alderton, 65, is claimed to have trespassed on the property where Mr Middleton lives with his wife and young child, as part of a months-long row that has disturbed the normally sleepy village of Stanford Dingley.
Mr Alderton runs a motorcycle dealership and lives in a bungalow directly across from Mr Middleton’s farm. He fell out with Mr Middleton after the working farmer joined a group objecting to a planning application for a dwelling that was branded an “eyesore”, according to another neighbour familiar with the row. After tensions reached boiling point, Mr Middleton is understood to have requested that they communicate only via email or the council. But while it is believed that they engaged in a mediation programme, the alleged campaign of harassment continued.
Responding to The Independent, Mr Middleton said: “Police were contacted shortly after our son was born as we became increasingly concerned by the activities surrounding a neighbour. West Berkshire Council became involved when our neighbour complained about noise from tractors and animals at the farm along with a series of other complaints.”
He went on to say that West Berkshire Council had found no reason to investigate any of what he termed the “disingenuous complaints”. Mr Middleton also claimed: “Mr Alderton has a history of disputes with neighbours within the village. In 2017 he took legal action against the parish council and a parishioner, and intimidated locals for objecting to a series of planning applications, all of which were refused.”
Mr Alderton was approached twice by this publication but declined to respond. However, he told the Daily Mail in February 2023: “This month we have further been subjected to the unwelcome toxic and noxious ingress of fumes within our home from the clearly unsuitable machinery he uses. It’s a matter of public record that complaints have been made to the local council but nothing has been done. There are three barns full of old farmyard machinery, no good to anyone and it’s all going on 50ft from our front door. It’s ancient, noisy, dirty, smelly machinery, old Massey Fergusons, an old threshing machine, wood chipping machines, you name it. It’s a farm so I suppose he thinks he feels justified in having farm machinery even if it’s derelict.”
While Mr Alderton has accused his neighbour of using loud machinery and disturbing an area of outstanding natural beauty, Mr Middleton painted a different picture. He said: “It is sad that someone who chooses to live in the countryside in a farming community cannot accept that from time to time there will be noise and smells from tractors and animals, especially if they live next to a farm. We would be neglecting our duty of responsibility for the animals and countryside if we did what he asked us to do to our livestock.”
Mr Middleton also alleges his neighbour used an offensive slur, and that he trespassed so often that Mr Middleton was forced to contact the police to create a record of Mr Alderton’s behaviour. Mr Middleton claimed there was another angry bust-up after his neighbour allegedly allowed a journalist to film over the property he shares with his wife, Alizee Thevenet, 33, and their son, Inigo, using a drone camera.
The situation is said to have escalated further in July last year, when Mr Alderton allegedly visited the Middleton house while the family were on holiday. According to a source familiar with the event, a friend who was housesitting was subjected to abuse when the family’s dogs scared their own guinea fowl, which then squawked loudly. While their friend went into the barn to calm the birds down, according to the source, they were unable to act quickly enough to placate Mr Alderton, who the source said stormed over to the property and loudly shouted: “Shut those f***ing birds up you noisy c***,” leaving the housesitter deeply distressed.
Unfortunately, the saga did not end there, with Mr Alderton allegedly setting tongues wagging in nearby villages by publicising the dispute with malicious posters. The posters made malicious claims in reference to reports last year that the taxpayer would have to foot the bill after Carole Middleton’s children’s party-supplies business, Party Pieces, collapsed. Referring to the collapse of the business, the posters demanded that the couple pay back those left in debt, with dozens of the A4 laminated pages stapled to trees, church noticeboards and lampposts.
“[Mr Alderton’s actions] bred animosity in the community, rumour, ill feeling, and caused myself and my family anxiety and distress,” Mr Middleton said. Neighbours explained how Mr Middleton was forced to remove the posters by hand, and claimed that he had viewed CCTV that appeared to indicate that Mr Alderton had posted them around the village. Ironically, publicly available documents from Companies House show that Mr Alderton’s first company went into liquidation in May 2014 with more than £70,000 owed to HMRC.
Even this did not spell the end of the feud. Last autumn, the Middleton family claim they faced more problems, including alleged reapplying of the posters, attempts to deliberately set off their security lights at night, and further alleged threats from Mr Alderton. Mr Middleton told this publication he is saddened but also glad that the police are now looking into what has occurred.
On one side, it does sound like James Middleton is being harassed quite badly by his neighbor, and for that, he has my sympathy. Although I would genuinely like to hear Alderton’s side of the noise dispute, especially because James is trying to bill himself as some kind of gentleman farmer and Alderton seems to think he’s a total fraud. Now, I don’t believe this attempt to blame the poster campaign solely on Alderton. There seems to be a lot of negative energy around the Middletons all around, and only some of it is being directed at James. The Mail even did an interview with a completely different person hanging posters around town last year and her animosity was for Carole and Michael Middleton (and Pippa too).
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid and James’s Instagram.