April 1649: Diggers on St George’s Hill; April 2026: The rich on St George’s Hill
It was reported in 2022 that Russians and those from former Soviet states own more than a quarter of the 430 luxurious homes in St George’s Hill, a heavily guarded 964-acre estate near Weybridge, Surrey, where mansions have changed hands for more than £20m each.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers#St_George’s_Hill,_Weybridge,_Surrey
In April 1649 a group of radicals, named the Diggers, including Gerrard Winstanley(1609-1676), occupied land on St George’s Hill in Surrey and planted vegetables with a view to subsisting on the land. Local landowners took legal action and hired thugs to physically attack the Diggers and by 1650 the exercise in communal life had been abandoned
A story in the Guardian (28th Feb 2022) focused on Russian oligarchs but in fact the majority of the very wealthy inhabitants of St Georges Hill and its exclusive gated area are from elsewhere.
Winstanley who believed property should be held in common would no doubt have had some fiery words to say on the matter. However given that even in 1649 he was harassed by wealthy landowners it’s a reminder that the world remains divided and the solution to it the same as well
Kmflett's Blog 
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