A City tycoon from west Oxfordshire has won a £1m cut to the £8m he was ordered to pay his ex-wife in a divorce settlement described by a judge as “half of the carcass of the golden goose”.

Maurice Robson, 66, who owns the Kiddington estate, near Woodstock, had complained at the Court of Appeal that the amount he was ordered to give his wife of 24 years, Chloe, 54, would mean he would have to sell the estate to pay his debts. The estate includes a grade II listed hall, 39 houses and cottages including most of the village of Kiddington and farm and shooting land totalling 2,050 acres Lord Justice Ward, giving the ruling of the court yesterday, said: “It is without doubt a magnificent property and one has to have some sympathy with the husband over his reluctance to contemplate its sale.”

He added: “They both must learn to tighten their belts (which) they ought to have done years ago.

“They lived off the fruit of the land without properly husbanding it. The Hall represented their lifestyle. The Hall has gone.

“They have, by their mutually extravagant lifestyle, killed the goose that was capable of laying the golden eggs had they fed her properly.

“It is pure coincidence, and faintly ironic, that if the proceeds of the sale of the Hall (if one does not take into account the husband’s increased overdrafts) are about £14 million, then, by a quirk of arithmetic, a lump sum of £7m represents one half of the carcass of the golden goose that exemplified their way of life.”

The money was inherited by Mr Robson from his accountant father. They married in 1985 and have a son aged 20 and daughter of 17.