The fascinating first series of ‘Country House Rescue’ showed all to clearly that ownership of a country house is no passport to an easy life of luxury. In fact, it demonstrated that being the ‘lord of the manor’ brings with it many responsibilities which can take a significant toll both physically but most importantly financially.
On Thursday 4 March at 20:00 on Channel 4 the next series of ‘Country House Rescue‘ starts in Wales with the owner of Plas Teg; a grade-I listed Jacobean house which has remained remarkably unchanged since it was built in 1610. However, for the owner who gave up her glamorous life in Notting Hill when she moved to this 20,000sq ft house, it has proved to be a constant struggle to maintain this important house. Hopefully Ruth can provide some of her usual robust advice to help get Plas Teg on the path to a more secure future.
Often the course of the country estate over the last 100 years has been for the land to be gradually sold off, starting with the outlying areas, and moving closer until just the house and it’s immediate gardens remain intact. At Leonardslee in Sussex the process was eventually taken one step further with the house being sold off. This, however, may about to be reversed.
Sir Edmund Loder bought the manor house and 225-acre gardens from his inlaws in 1889 and soon opened them to the public. Over the next five generations, the Loder family added to the planting and landscaping to create what is now one of the only 163 grade-I listed gardens in the country. Despite the family still owning the gardens the grade-II listed Italianate manor house, built in 1853 and featuring a 900 sq ft central hall decorated with Ionic columns, was sold off separately in the 1980s and became offices. The gardens grew in reputation so it was something of a shock when in April 2008 it was announced that they were being put up for sale by Robin Loder for £5m through the estate agency Savills. Cleverly, the company who owned the house also announced they were open to offers at around £3.25m for the house.
The Times is now reporting that after nearly two years on the market, the gardens have been sold to a private businessman and are likely to close to the public. They are also reporting that the house may also be under offer at £2.75m to the same businessman giving him a perfect opportunity to once again recreate a stunning small estate which, with the addition of the house, could be worth in the region of £10m. Though a sad day for the many garden-lovers who have made many a pilgrimage to wander among the wallabies, it’s an encouraging reversal of the trend for houses to lose the control of the landscape which so often perfectly frames them.
Although Britain is a relatively small island it still has the capacity to hide some spectacular buildings which, unless opened to the public, can remain a secret. One such house, featured this week in Country Life magazine (February 17) is Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire, thought to be the largest private residence in Europe and for Marcus Binney “unquestionably the finest Georgian house in England”.
Built over a 25 year period from 1724 for Thomas Watson-Wentworth, Marquess of Rockingham, it is twice as wide as Buckingham Palace and boasts over a 1,000 windows, 365 rooms and five miles of underground passageways. The stable block appears to be a large country house but is merely the lodging for up to 100 horses. Inside the main house, the Earls FitzWilliam enjoyed a priceless art collection which included works by Titian, Van Dyck, Guido, and Raphael.
Yet this was a house to be blighted by the bitter class-war hatred of the post-war Labour government and questions of inheritance. In April 1946, heavy machinery moved into Wentworth Park to pointlessly mine low-grade coal right up to the back door of the house on the express instruction of Manny Shinwell, the minister of fuel and power. A old-school left-winger, Shinwell was given options to save the parkland and gardens but was determined to press on despite representations from the local miners who had been very well treated by successive generations of FitzWilliams.
Once mining finished the FitzWilliams leased the house as a training college and retreated to 40-rooms but even then lived mostly elsewhere. Questions about the legitimacy of the inheritance led the last Earl to order a vast bonfire in 1972 of 16 tons of family papers, some dating back to medieval times, which burnt for three weeks.
Yet, despite its size the house escaped the fate of so many large houses in England and merely languished in obscurity. Sold with just 30-acres in 1988 by the daughter of the last Earl it was bought by Wensley Haydon-Baillie who promised investment but in 1998 it was repossessed. It was then sold for the unbelievably low price of £1.5m (equivalent to just £7 per sq ft) to the architect Clifford Newbold whose careful restoration work has been praised and beautifully photographed in this weeks Country Life.
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*Update* May 2011 – I have written a more extensive write-up on the architectural history of the house in response to the episode of ‘The Country House Revealed‘
When Gwrych Castle was finally sold in June 2006 after twenty years of neglect, dereliction, fires and theft, there was much praise and relief locally that the once-beautiful “showplace of Wales” was to be rescued. Bought by Yorkshire-based Clayton Hotels for £860,000, they estimated that once planning permission had been secured, the restoration would take between 2-3 years and cost an estimated £6m – however three years later, the major part of the restoration work has yet to start.
Built between 1819-1825 for Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh, grade-I listed Gwrych was one of the largest ‘castlellated mansions’ in Europe, part of a ‘gothick’ revival which included some of Britain’s most picturesque country houses such as Eastnor Castle, East Cowes Castle, Lea Castle, and Castel Coch and many more. Following its sale by the 13th Earl of Dundonald in 1946 it was opened to the public in various forms and under various owners until 1989. The failure of the redevelopment plans led to the castle being left unprotected against the ravages of the weather, travellers, and vandals, leaving the castle a mere shell, the fine interiors rotting in piles in the collapsed ground floor.
The plans unveiled by Clayton Hotels in 2007 showed that the castle would be fully restored and largely based on the original layout. Mark Baker of the Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust, who had campaigned since he was 11 to save the castle, welcomed the plans and for many it seemed that the end was in sight. In February 2009, Wales Online (‘Welsh ruin to be transformed with techniques fit for royal home‘) trumpeted how the design work for the restoration was starting under the care of Donald Insall, one of the best conservation architects in the UK. However, in May 2009, a story on BBC News (‘Slow economy delays hotel plans‘) explained that the slow economy had delayed plans and also the cost for the project had risen to between £12-14m.
Now a recent story (‘Clitheroe man haunted by ghostly image in castle window‘) about a ghost in a window included some interesting quotes which raise some questions about the status of the project – or perhaps just the intended future clients.
A Lancashire businessman who combines being an optician with “psychic management” claimed to have taken a picture of a girl standing at a window where there is no floor. Kevin Horkin claimed he was visiting the site as “I buy property and was looking at the castle with the view buying it.” and the story ends by saying that “Kevin has put a bid in for the castle which he hopes to turn into a luxury psychic retreat.”. Despite the obvious convenience of a psychic who wants to open a hotel taking one of the clearest ever pictures of a ghost, it does raise questions about why he is saying the hotel is for sale? The Clayton Hotels website is one page with an email link and with the dramatic rise in restoration costs and the difficulties of the property markets, is the castle being quietly marketed ‘off the record’? Perhaps the quotes are misconstrued, or perhaps Clayton will refurbish the house but lease it Mr Horkin, but either way, Clayton Hotels should perhaps clarify exactly what is happening to this iconic part of Wales’ architectural heritage especially as so many people have spent so long campaigning for its rescue.
Calke Abbey, Derbyshire (Image: National Trust / Rupert Truman)
In an important change of policy, the National Trust has decided to lift some of the many restrictions which had led to criticisms that it was being too museum-like in it’s approach to its wonderful country houses. The new strategy is designed to give visitors more of flavour of how a house might have been used when it was a home.
This vision was inspired, at least in part, by the experience of the NT chairman Simon Jenkins, when visiting Chatsworth House in Derbyshire which is still the family home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire as well as one of the finest homes in private ownership in Europe. Visitors often find that the Duchess has joined them and rooms show the momentoes and items found in any home.
The NT accepts that this will increase the wear-and-tear on the properties and inevitably some mistakes will be made. The expertise and experience of the Trust should ensure that the correct controls are still in place where appropriate as no-one wants to see damage to delicate fabrics, books or paintings. The new atmosphere of exploration and freedom will hopefully enhance the visitors experience and allow them to appreciate the house as it was intended to be; as a home.
The Country Seat 