Clad in traditional tweed shooting gear, with a Perazzi gun over his arm, Jeremy Pilkington surveys the view. The rolling Yorkshire countryside, with its green hills, wooded gorges and fertile farmland, is bathed in the first flush of summer sunshine. Much of the view from the immaculate striped lawn to the horizon belongs to him.

“From the terrace there along the line of the trees, down to the valley and back along the ridge,” Pilkington says. “I don’t own all of it. It’s not quite to the skyline.”

Behind him rises Sawley Hall, a splendid, boxy, ochre-coloured early Georgian house at the centre of the estate, near Harrogate, that Pilkington, 57, has spent 15 years restoring. The chairman of the plant-hire business VP, and worth an estimated £79m, he has lavished millions on returning the semi-derelict 10-bedroom house to immaculate condition, complete with a trophy room in which the walls are adorned with the heads of African game. Outside, he has renovated three cottages and the courtyard stables, uncovered the original walled garden and rhododendron walk, and discovered a cress pond cut into a bend in the river.

He has added considerably to his original 70 acres, creating a 950-acre estate that includes a dower house, trout ponds, a deer park, woodland and a shoot. He also has sporting rights over 1,390 acres.

“It is very satisfying,” he says. “It is great to wake up in the morning and go and explore your land. And, if the weather is awful, then it is nice to be relieved of the obligation to be active, light a fire and settle in with a book.”

Pilkington, now selling after the break-up of his marriage, is one of the “new Victorians”, a small but influential number of country-house owners who, like 19th-century entrepreneurs before them, are carving ever larger estates out of the English countryside.

“It used to be that 150 acres was considered large, but now the dream is 1,000,” says Mark Lawson, a partner at The Buying Solution, an upmarket property-finding agency. He helps his wealthy clients acquire not just trophy houses, but the surrounding land. “They are extending their estates with shoots, woodland and cottages – we are witnessing the revival of the traditional English estate.”

Historically, England’s great country houses and estates were home to the aristocracy and the landed gentry. During the period of economic austerity that followed the second world war, however, many stately homes were donated to the National Trust or converted for institutional use. The owners of many of the remaining estates kept afloat by selling off smaller properties and parcels of land, but in recent years, the trend has begun to reverse.

“For the first time in generations, there are buyers who can afford not just to buy large estates, but to run them,” says Rupert Sweeting, director of Knight Frank’s country-house department. “Ten years ago, the land was worth more split into smaller lots, but now, in many instances, it is worth far more as a whole. There’s never been such a lot of money about or such demand for large estates with a beautiful house.”

Take Dowdeswell Court, in the Cotswolds, a nine-bedroom house in 11 acres that sold for £4m in 2006 to a City buyer. He has added a five-bedroom coach house, stables and 30 acres. It is now back on the market with Savills for £12m.

These days, buying agents and country-house consultants are as likely to be found in dusty parish archives, mildewed estate offices and family vaults, hunting down estate maps, as on the golf course. Their task is to find documents showing the boundaries of former estates that will help the new owners to piece the jigsaw back together. The Buying Solution cites the sale of one Gloucestershire estate last autumn, which was conditional on securing the old estate maps.

Ed Sugden, a director of Property Vision, another top-end buying agency, has helped one client to expand his Warwick-shire estate from 800 acres to 2,300 in the past decade. “Our job is to identify the starting block – a picturesque and important house with land that will cost maybe £20m,” he says. “Then we sit down with a map, draw a line where you want the boundary to be, then slowly make approaches to other owners.”

There’s the catch. “Often, we try to buy land from neigh-bouring farmers,” Sugden says, “but they won’t budge for love nor money. Even if we ask them to name their price, they still won’t sell.” It’s no good just throwing money at the local peasantry – it is all about strategy and the long view. Personal contacts are vital. “The gentle approach works best,” Sugden advises. “If it is a cottage or woodland adjoining the estate, however, it is best to be upfront and pay more.”

In Gloucestershire, Sir James Dyson, who has made an estimated £760m from his bag-less vacuum cleaners, has been busy recreating one of England’s grander country estates. Since buying Dodington Park, nine miles from Bath, with a beautiful, Grade I-listed Georgian house and 300 acres of Capability Brown parkland, for £20m in 2003, he has bought adjoining parcels of land and a number of cottages.

It is well known locally that Dyson, 61, is keen to buy more, but he will have to be prepared to pay a premium, as land prices are at record levels. According to Knight Frank, the average cost has risen by 12% this year and is heading towards £5,000 per acre.

Urs Schwarzenbach, a Swiss-born financier and polo-playing friend of Prince Charles, has an even bolder vision – he seems set on recreating an English estate of medieval proportions.

Two years ago, Schwarzenbach, 59, worth an estimated £852m, snapped up the Culham Court estate, a £35m, Grade II*-listed Georgian house in 650 acres of parkland on the banks of the Thames. Then, in a secret deal last year, he bought the Hambleden estate – with 44 properties, a pub and 1,600 acres, including a highly prized shoot – for £38m. The two estates are only about 20 miles apart, leading some property insiders to speculate that he has designs on the land in between.

“Buyers are taking the long view – the skyline’s the limit,” says Crispin Holborow, head of country houses and estates at Savills. “They are prepared to pay substantial premiums to be in control of the immediate landscape and view.”

Such space also gives these newly minted lords of the manor the freedom to create a more impressive approach to their homes, by moving the drive, perhaps, or installing a lake (which can cost anything from £10,000 to £1m). The spending doesn’t end there. Barbed-wire fences are being replaced with neat rails – 10 times more expensive – and properties (either for guests or to house the staff), gateposts and signs are painted in matching livery courtesy of Farrow & Ball.

Some owners are even taking etiquette lessons from their estate managers in order to learn how to make the best lordly impression on their new and potential tenants. The experts’ top tip? Don’t swan into the local pub in checked plus fours and cap, then demand Cristal champagne.

Sawley Hall is for sale for £10m with Savills; 020 7409 8882, www.savills.co.uk

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