When Guy Nevill spotted two white blurs on a distant hillside he thought maybe some sheep had escaped from their field, but the animals turned out to be a whole lot more interesting.

Mr Nevill, whose family owns the 1800-acre Birling Estate near West Malling, said: “We have a shepherd here who brought in 200 sheep to graze on our cover crops over winter, and recently some did escape.”

“I was out walking and spotted two white blurs a long way off which I assumed were also sheep.

“I told the shepherd and he used a drone to look for the stray animals - but they turned out to be not sheep at all, but deer - two white and one brown.”

Mr Nevill confessed to being very excited.

He said: “The White Stag is an animal of great mysticism in medieval folklore because they are so rare.

“It’s tied up to tales of Herne the Hunter, the antler-horned ghost said to haunt Windsor Forest.

“But sadly when I looked into it, the White Stag is a red deer - and these deer on our land turn out to be fallow deer.

“It seems that white fallow deer are much more common.”

Birling Estate is a sustainable, diversified rural business with arable farming, sheep, woodland and a vineyard. It also offers camping and an outdoor wedding venue.

The estate has been in the Nevill family for almost 600 years.

Mr Nevill said: “Up until about 10 years ago, we never had any deer here at all.

“But recently we have had deer coming in - fallow deer from the south and roe deer from the north.”

A white fallow or roe deer is known as a White Buck rather than a White Stag.

The white colour is caused by a condition known as leucism, which causes hair and skin to lose its natural pigmentation.

They are not strictly speaking albinos.

Albinos have characteristically red eyes, but deer with leucism have normal colouring in their eyes.

A White Stag was the symbol of King Richard ll.

In Arthurian legends, the appearance of a White Stag, because they were so rare and difficult to catch, indicated that it was time for the knights of the Round Table to embark on a quest.

Mr Nevill said: “Even if they are not White Stags, I’m going to take their appearance as an indication that I should renew my own quest to restore our land for nature.”