How this tiny English village got a US tech money makeover

He’s a bit like a modern-day lord of the manor, albeit an absentee one. Over the past decade, Michael Birch, a tech millionaire who’s British-born and raised but lives in the United States, has bought the pub, a shop and post office, fish ‘n’ chip takeaway, farm, cottages and manor house in a tiny North Devon village, population 1100.

In the process, he’s transformed Woolsery – also known by its original Anglo-Saxon tongue twister of a name of Woolfardisworthy – and this broader patch of England into a must-visit destination.