From Hadspen House to more than 2,700 acres

Koos Bekker, the South African billionaire who chairs Naspers, one of the world's biggest technology firms, and whose net worth is put at about £3bn, bought the 17th-century manor Hadspen House in 2013 with 16 acres of land. He converted it into the Newt, a luxury hotel.

The holding has grown far beyond that first purchase. Guardian analysis puts land bought around Bruton and Castle Cary at more than 2,700 acres - 1,090 hectares - acquired through his company Emily Estate (UK) Limited, which trades as the Newt.

• •Last year the estate acquired Yarlington Lodge, a Grade II-listed Georgian house a mile away, now a 32-guest property with its own pool, tennis court and cinema room
• •Purchases have included farmhouses and pubs, as well as high street businesses from a deli to a beauty parlour
• •The sign for Castle Cary train station now reads "Castle Cary for the Newt"

A hotel beloved of celebrities - and priced accordingly

The £800-a-night Newt draws celebrity guests such as Charli xcx and Kate Moss, and recently welcomed a cage of endangered red squirrels. Other famous residents of the area include former chancellor George Osborne, fashion designer Stella McCartney and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup. Its gardens feature a historically accurate Roman villa, a "four seasons" garden with marble fountains and a treetop walkway, but only hotel guests and holders of an £85 annual pass can enter.

Prices around the estate reflect its clientele:

• •A bag of chocolate buttons in the farm shop costs £11.95, and a bottle of estate-grown "cyder" £12.50
• •The Creamery cafe by the tracks serves afternoon tea in a vintage Pullman carriage at £45 a head
• •At the George pub in Castle Cary, which the Newt has bought, pensioners still get a hot dinner for £12 - though locals do not expect those prices to last

Where locals push back

Not everyone in Bruton and Castle Cary cheers the transformation. Food writer Hugh Thomas, from Frome, called the station renaming "arrogant and brazen", adding that the station feels colonised by the Newt. Others welcomed the investment, however, citing jobs and new visitors and saying it had cheered up a previously unloved station.

Flooding is a recurring complaint. Locals report increased flooding since the Newt was built. The hotel has acknowledged it and digs pools to hold run-off from farm and paved areas.

Writer Emma Craigie, who lives nearby, said her village saw "incidents of flooding which seemed clearly exacerbated by their road building and hardcore use". The worst came in May 2023, when flash flooding down the Pitt and Cam valleys was described by the council as beyond levels seen in living memory; the local authority declared an emergency that evening.

Villagers have petitioned against the spraying of pesticides on the Newt's farmland. Model and actor Gabriella Wilde said: "I was surprised and a little disappointed to learn that they are using such harmful chemicals in their farming operations".

Farmers suspect boreholes drilled by the hotel have dried up sections of the River Brue, the stream Bruton is named after. Cider-maker and neighbour Oliver Dowding has negotiated with the estate through the Environment Agency over his stretch of the river, and says the newts that once lived on his land have disappeared.

The red squirrels have drawn criticism too. Rewilding expert Derek Gow, consulted about keeping five in a pen, said: "It is not going to be viable. It is performative – [the squirrels] are in the cage to show guests". He noted that red squirrels largely died out in England after grey squirrels introduced from America carried squirrelpox, a disease that kills the reds.

Critics also point out that although the estate markets its food as "locally produced", its farms lack organic certification. One organic farm next to a village was bought and is organic no longer - the change behind local resident John Sykes's objection:

A spokesperson for the Newt said the estate proudly employs more than 650 people who are either from or live within the local area, along with specialists including agronomists, horticulturists and conservationists.