Tags
With all the fracking debate I wondered about how far down do land owners actually own, and yes you guessed it, not very far, six ft to be precise.
Who owns the rest, why the crown, that wonderful antiquated idea that you can let an inbred family rule over your country, whilst you pay them to do so!
You used to own down to the centre of the earth, but after legislation, introduced in the 20th century, all mineral rights, precious metal etc were passed to the Crown Estate
Ownership of oil and gas within the land area of Great Britain was vested in the Crown by the Petroleum (Production) Act 1934.
https://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/planning/legislation/mineralOwnership.html
Jason E Cooper 
Land owners do not actually own the top six feet either – they just have rights to it under a freehold lease granted by the Crown which could theoretically be withdrawn at any time. I believe there are a few exceptions, such as the Duchy of Cornwall.