Author: Matthew Beckett - The Country Seat

Midmar Castle – all that glistens isn’t quite golden

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Midmar Castle, Aberdeenshire (Image: The Times)

It seems that an interesting story used to help speed up the sale of a house but for Midmar Castle in Aberdeenshire even a tale of sunken gold hasn’t helped secure a sale a year after the house was launched. The category-A listed castle was launched on the market on February 2009 with a fulsome write-up in The Times relating how the value of the house had underwritten a risky – but ultimately successful – expedition to recover £50m in Russian gold which had gone down with HMS Edinburgh in WWII.

The castle was originally started in 1411 but was greatly extended in the late sixteenth-century by the remarkable local granite-masons known as the Midmar school. They were responsible for Midmar and four other castles built nearby – Crathes, Frazer, Drum, Craigievar – all of which are now owned by the National Trust apart from Midmar.  Based on the traditional defensive z-plan with three main towers, this is an impressive and historic home.

The original price tag of £5m (set by Knight Frank who have now been replaced by Savills) for the house, gardens, outbuildings and surrounding 185-acres has now dropped to £3.5m – which represents an average drop of over £100,000 for each month it has remained on the market.   This may reflect some over-optimistic valuations but it’s still a superb, historic castle set in a perfect mini estate – ideal for anyone who wishes to experience the Scottish country lifestyle but doesn’t want the thousands of acres which often come with a house of this quality.

Property details: ‘Midmar Castle, Aberdeenshire‘ [Savills]

Restoration of Poltimore House receives boost

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Poltimore House, Devon

The project to restore an important Devon country house, which is finally being rescued after being neglected since the 1970s, has received a significant boost.  English Heritage has awarded a £500,000 grant which will allow major work to continue on making Poltimore House watertight and safe for the ongoing  restoration work.

The grade-II*-listed house has been a familiar sight to anyone who has driven on the M5 near Exeter who would have seen it slowly deteriorating since it ceased being a hospital in 1975.  Originally the Bampfylde family seat, Poltimore was originally built in the 1550s with this part now forming a still visible core section of the house.  It was greatly extended in 18th-century with the work including a Rococo-style saloon and then again in the 19th-century with the addition of a grand imperial staircase.

The decline started when the Bampfyldes finally left the house in 1921 after the death of the third Baron Poltimore, and put it up for sale.  For many houses this was a prelude to demolition but Poltimore escaped by becoming a boarding school for until 1939 when it then became temporary home for Dover College during WWII.  After the war the house became a nursing home and remained in use as a hospital until 1975.  Once empty, the decline accelerated rapidly with thefts of lead, fireplaces and other fittings including the entire balustrade from the staircase. The damage was compounded by serious arson attack which destroyed the roof.

The journey back from total dereliction started in 1997 when the house was acquired by the Buildings at Risk Trust before being taken over by the Poltimore House Trust in 1999.  Their intention is fully restore the house for mixed use with commercial aspects combined with community and arts use.  A large and active group of Friends of the house have tirelessly campaigned to save this important piece of Devon’s heritage and English Heritage are to be congratulated for such a large contribution towards the estimated £5.5m restoration bill.

More information including details of the planned restoration: ‘Poltimore House‘

Proposal for Trentham Hall to be rebuilt as a hotel

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Trentham Hall proposal, Staffordshire (Image: Property Week)

One of the greatest losses in the many country houses demolished in the 20th-century was that of Trentham Hall, the Staffordshire seat of the Dukes of Sutherland.  Originally a large Georgian house, it was rebuilt and greatly extended for the second Duke in the 1830s by the famous architect Sir Charles Barry, who was also responsible for the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament.  The house became a celebrated venue for entertaining and was filled with fine works of art and sculpture.

Unfortunately the relentless expansion of the nearby Potteries areas of Staffordshire led to increasing amounts of pollution entering the rivers which fed the lakes and gardens designed by Capability Brown. By 1898 the smell was so bad that the house was effectively abandoned by 1907.  The Duke tried to donate the house and estate to the local council  in 1905 but was rejected so in 1912 the house was demolished.

The gardens were eventually opened to the public with the remaining outbuildings sitting rather forlornly around the blank space which marked out the site of the now lost house.  The gardens had been maintained and delighted generations of locals who would walk through the extensive terraces which led down to the now clean lake.  Now the 750-acre Trentham Gardens are part of a £100m project to bring back the glory of the earlier eras, with the centrepiece being the £35m recreation of the house as a 150-room luxury hotel following Barry’s original designs.

Despite the economic turmoil, the developers, who originally planned for completion by 2011, are still hopeful that they will be able to proceed with the project.   Although the hotel will not bring back the history and unique architecture of the house, the idea of recreating a lost country house is one to be encouraged.  Although many houses were demolished, the parkland and gardens were often simply abandoned and are still visible today.  Perhaps other estates might be encouraged to look at whether a new house might be the most appropriate use of the estate – after all, this was the purpose of their creation.

Full story: ‘Trentham rebuilt‘ [Property Week]

An architectural gem – but still slow to sell: Iver Grove

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Iver Grove, Buckinghamshire (Image: The Listed Property Owners Club)

When it was completed in 1724, Iver Grove was one of the first houses in Britain built using the then radical Palladian styling; pre-dating even Lord Burlington’s famous Chiswick House.  Iver Grove is a beautiful and compact red brick essay in the use of the Classical elements with a Doric portico and topped with an elegant pediment.  Although originally attributed to either Sir Christopher Wren or Nicholas Hawksmoor, it’s now more widely accepted to be the work of John James who worked with Wren on St Paul’s Cathedral and succeeded him as the surveyor of the Commissioners’ Churches.  The front steps lead into a spacious and light entrance hall featuring the original oak staircase.

That the house is here today is remarkable in itself as after WWII it was in a parlous state and at risk of becoming one of the many hundreds of country houses demolished in the 1950s.  The house was smothered in ivy, riddled with dry rot and had been subject to various thefts of lead and fixtures and vandals who had smashed all but one of the Wedgewood stained-glass panels in window over the staircase.  The house was one of the first to be bought by the Government in an effort to save it – although this led to angry questions in the House of Commons from philistine MPs who demanded to know why we had spent more saving an “extremely beautiful house” (Lord John Hope) than we had sent to aid the Congo.  Such amazing short-sightedness still prevails today with those asking why we spend any money on heritage with similarly spurious justifications.

Anyway, thanks to the Government, the house was rescued through a programme of works which included demolishing the collapsed Victorian wing – and in so doing bring the house back to it original scale, and conveniently making it more manageable.  So when the this grade-I listed house was first launched in 2007 with much press coverage including a glowing write-up by Marcus Binney in The Times (‘A fast track to perfection‘) and later in Country Life (‘Georgian estate for sale‘) it was thought it would sell quickly.  However, £6.5m price tag was probably boosted by its architectural importance above the fact that it was a six-bedroom house with just 17-acres near to the M25.  The price was probably quickly identified as the issue as in The Times article in May the price is £6.5m, by the time the Country Life article was published in December the price was given as ‘offers over £5m’.  Now, two and half years later the price has dropped to a more reasonable £4.25m, and hopefully this will entice a new sympathetic purchaser with a desire to live in an important country house with manageable grounds but who will appreciate being just 17 miles from Hyde Park corner.  Actually, if I win the lottery, I’ll probably go for it.

Full details: ‘Iver Grove, Buckinghamshire‘ [Knight Frank]

Want to work in an Adam-designed office? Cumbernauld House for sale

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Cumbernauld House, Lanarkshire

One alternative to demolition for a country house whose time as a home had come to an end was conversion to offices.  Many houses were thus saved from the wreckers pickaxe although some conversions were more sensitive than others, with some unfortunate houses being reduced to shells with the historic interiors severely compromised.  Some were very successful such as Donington Hall (headquarters to BMI), Mamhead House (formerly HQ to a local construction firm but well looked after and now back as a home) and Gaddesden Place (now home to a software company).

One such house which was converted in 1955 and in need of a sympathetic new owner is the grade-A listed Cumbernauld House in North Lanarkshire, currently for sale at offers over £1m.  Built for the Earl of Wigton in 1731, the house was designed by William Adam (1689-1748), one of the leading architects of his day, and includes some of his typical flourishes such as arched windows, channelled masonry and carved tympana.  Although the Adam interiors were lost in a serious 1877, the reconstructed interior is still noteworthy.  Currently empty, this house deserves a new lease of life and would make a suitable and impressive headquarters – although part of me does faintly hope that someone might want to take on the challenge of turning it back into a home.

More details: ‘Cumbernauld House‘ [SAVE Britain’s Heritage] – as Building of the Month this link may not work after Feb 2010 but there is a dedicated website at : www.cumbernauldhouse.com