When his local newspaper, the Teesdale Mercury, was ailing in 1983, Barnard came to its rescue, becoming its owner and director. While he never interfered with its editorial line, Ian Galletley, a columnist for the paper, recalled him as a man of strong opinions and understated wit: “He was a lover of tradition but a champion of eccentrics. His humour was sometimes sly but he loved wit and elegance in language. He spoke up for the endangered countryside and its people. He cared for the land. He could be infuriating but he encouraged those he cared for or agreed with. He was a product of his background but open to challenge. His letters were beautiful examples of terse art.”  Later his daughter Carolyn took the reins to oversee the paper’s modernisation into the digital era.  At the age of 63, having missed out on university due to the war, Lord Barnard surprised friends and family members by enrolling at Durham University Business School and taking an MSc in Management Studies.  Lord Barnard’s liking for music and opera sometimes took him to the big cities, but it was always a relief to him to return to Raby. He served as a Deputy Lieutenant then, for 18 years, as Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of County Durham.  In 1952 he married Lady Davina Cecil, daughter of the 6th Marquess of Exeter, with whom he had four daughters and a son. Although the marriage was dissolved in 1992, they remained friends and neither remarried.  His son Harry (the Hon Henry Francis Cecil Vane), born in 1959, succeeds to the barony.  Lord Barnard, born September 21 1923, died April 3 2016
The 11th Lord Barnard, who has died aged 92, was the model of a traditional landowner, combining management of his extensive estates in County Durham and Shropshire, and his medieval family seat, Raby Castle, near Staindrop, Co Durham, with an old-fashioned commitment to the local community.