‘The market continues to suffer,’ says Lewis, pointing to the stamp duty rises in 2014 to 2016, amid myriad tax changes for offshore buyers.

Ranson’s colleagues remember his rather unusual application for a training contract at Macfarlanes. ‘I put “I love property law” on the form,’ he says. ‘It is still true and two things in particular still cause me to leap out of bed in the morning — the clients and the law on which I advise.’

A tier-one counsel to UHNWs, wealth managers, private banks, trustees and family offices, Roberjot has built an enviable contacts book over the past nineteen years. Those contacts range from London to Jersey, Guernsey, Monaco, Switzerland and Singapore (she also built the firm’s booming London residential property practice from scratch).

Now an international juggernaut, Knight Frank boasts more than a century’s history selling rural property — and Hopkins, a steadfast country hand, has seen over a quarter of it from the inside. Hailed as ‘terrific’ and ‘seriously good’ by industry experts, he heads up the farms and estates sales division, a specialist team of nine within the firm’s 30-strong London office.

If you were looking to sell a house in the country, the chances are someone would recommend you speak to Sweeting first. He’s in his 30th year at Knight Frank, which he joined after graduating in rural land management from the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester.