PEOPLE are being offered the chance to become the Lord of Pendle – by stumping up thousands of pounds for the title.

The Lordship of the Manor of Pendle is being offered for private sale with a guide price of £6,000.

Manorial Auctioneers are inviting people to submit offers for the title.

Hundreds of manorial lordships, a relic of the medieval feudal system, change hands each year.

In 2009, the Lord of Bowland title was sold at auction to a Cambridge University scientist.

The titles do not involve any power, but to many they are of historical interest and can represent an investment.

Until 1922 lordships went with ownership of landed estates but the two were then separated by an Act of Parliament.

However a lordship is still treated as land in law and is transferred by conveyance in the same way as a house or plot.

Most come with ancient rights, such as fishing or mineral rights or ownership of common or waste land within the manor, which can cover an area of several square miles.

Often, these rights have not been exercised for decades or more and must be established after purchase through archival research.

Colne-based Liberal Democrat Tony Greaves was made a life peer as Baron Greaves, of Pendle, in the County of Lancashire, in 2000.

Under the law, no peerage title can be sold.

Lord Greaves, who is also a borough councillor, described manorial titles as ‘irrelevant’.

He said: “They are totally meaningless. They involve no land, no power and no responsibility.

“It wouldn’t be the local authority area because that was only established in 1974.

"But it could refer to Pendle Forest, which is the Pendleside area around Roughlee, Barley and Fence.”

People should send offers for the Pendle title to 104 Kennington Road, London, SE11 6RE, call 0207 5821588 or email manorial@msgb.co.uk.