Oxfordshire tycoon Richard Branson has come tenth in a list of the 1,000 richest people in Britain.

The travel, retail and entertainment boss, who lives in Kidlington, is valued at a cool £1,200m by the survey.

Figures from industry, sport and showbusiness who are based in the county also featured heavily.

Investments expert Martyn Arbib, with a business based in Henley-on Thames, sneaks into the top 50 at number 43 with a fortune of £440m.

Former government minister Michael Heseltine, who lives near Banbury, comes in at 143rd with a publishing fortune of £150m. Another Henley resident, former Beatle George Harrison, 56, is worth £90m while current chart topper George Michael, 35, who has recently bought a house in Goring, is worth £50m.

Other crooners in the list are the Gibb brothers, Barry, Robin and Maurice, better known as the Bee Gees. Robin, who owns a house in Sutton Courtenay, and his brothers are worth £90m.

Motor racing boss Eddie Jordan, 51, who lives in Oxford, has a fortune of £65m and comes 359th. Fellow motor racing team boss and newly knighted Frank Williams is worth £80m, helped by profits from his Oxfordshire based company, Williams Grand Prix Engineering.

Former touring car champion and owner of Arrows grand prix team, Tom Walkinshaw, is doing nicely on the profits from the Oxfordshire sports car company TWR. Walkinshaw is worth £85m. Reynard Motorsports, Adrian Reynard, has also done well in a business that started as a hobby. The Bicester-based business is valued at £70m and Reynard himself at £50m.

Crooked tycoon Robert Maxwell would have been proud of his twin daughters, Christine and Isabel, both 48, who have scraped together £100m from their internet company.

Philanthropist Sir John Paul Getty II, who owns an estate near Watlington, is worth £160m, despite giving away millions of pounds to the arts in Britain.

Apollo Theatre Group boss Paul Gregg, who along with his family owns the biggest privately owned theatre company in Europe, has £65m to play with. The Duke of Malborough, who owns the Blenheim estate at Woodstock, creeps in to the list at number 731 with a mere £30m.

Transport company boss James Sherwood, who lives in the county, has a fortune of £50m from his container company. President of the Oxfordshire-based software company RM, Michael Fischer, is worth £50m.

Story date: Monday 12 April

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.