24 Bricks&Mortar
year and for last year, and we’ll have to
start paying the capital back on the
CBILS loan,” he says.
At the Duke of Rutland’s Belvoir Castle
in Lincolnshire cancellations up to June
totalled £2.5 million, and at Mapperton
in Dorset the Earl of Sandwich and his
daughter-in-law have live-streamed
tours of the house on YouTube.
At Inveraray Castle in Argyll the
open season usually runs from April to
October, but it couldn’t open until July
this year and only for four days a week
with a one-way walking system in place.
“It’s not been great,” says the Duchess
of Argyll, whose family have lived at
Inveraray since the 15th century.
Without the usual cruise ship and coach
parties, visitor numbers are down 90 per
cent. Even on their 75,000-acre estate,
money is tight. “We had a grant turned
down because they said, ‘You’re really
rich,’ ” the duchess says. “Yes, we have a
lovely house, and beautiful possessions,
but it’s not real money. The perception
is that he’s a duke, he lives in a big house
and he’s got a Rembrandt on the wall.
But you can’t sell the house, and you
can’t sell the Rembrandt.”
Nevertheless, these ancient families
are determined to stay put, even if that
means taking over housekeeping duties.At Knowsley the bills of 2021 are
already looming large in Lord Derby’s
mind. The coronavirus business
interruption loan scheme (CBILS) and
the continuity business loan schemes
have been “hugely helpful”, but their
time will shortly be up, as will the VAT
holiday. “Next spring we’ll be trading
with more costs, we’ll owe VAT for thisT
he Stanley family are
survivors. On the
winning side at the
Battle of Bosworth,
they emerged from the
English Civil War and
went on to present the
paper in parliament that
led to the abolition of slavery. They have
weathered many storms, but nothing like
the coronavirus pandemic, which forced
them to close their ancestral home.
Knowsley Hall in Merseyside, a
12,500-acre estate and (now reopened)
safari park, has been unrecognisable of
late. “We put dust sheets over the state
rooms for three months,” says Caroline
Stanley, Countess of Derby, who lives
at Knowsley with her husband, Edward,
the 19th Earl of Derby. “There was
something eerie about the place. I kept
thinking I was going to run into a ghost.”
The lost income has hit them hard,
especially since they have paid £100,000
to repair the roof over the 45ft state
dining room that is usually hired for
events. “Stately homes eat
your money — if you had any,”
Lady Derby says. “I understand
the importance of making
sure you have facilities in
place to deal with unforeseen
circumstances,” Lord Derby, a former
banker, says, “but we are moving into a
zone where there are no facilities left.”
They are not the only stately
homeowners in dire straits. According
to Historic Houses, the organisation that
represents 1,500 such privately owned
properties nationwide, 50 per cent of
them will have to make redundancies
after the pandemic, putting up to 3,000
jobs on the line. And if they do not find
a way to reopen or are forced to sell,
art collections could be separated from
houses and the public could lose access
to these magnificent homes.
More than 1,000 country houses
were demolished in the 20th century,
while others were sold or had their
contents dispersed; in 1974 the Victoria
and Albert Museum’s Destruction of the
Country House 1875-1975 exhibition
showcased a century’s loss.
The listing system would prevent
Covid-19 having such a dramatic impact,
but it means that there will be, in effect,
three consecutive fallow seasons, or
“three winters”, to struggle through:
the winter of 2019/20; this summer;
and the winter of 2020/21.
The 2008 financial crash “led to
a revival in domestic tourism”, says
Ben Cowell, the director-general of
Historic Houses. “This is going to be
worse because the total gap in business
creates the condition of the three
winters. We might not see the worst
of the problems until next year.”Will our stately homes
Never mind the
Rembrandts —
these estates
depend on visitor
income, says
Eleanor Doughty
This Easter was
the first since 1959
that the house had
been empty
Movers
&Shapers
News from the
world of property
Leasehold reform pushback
Last week the Law Commission
recommended that the 1,000-year-old
leasehold system should be scrapped
in favour of commonhold.
Three freeholders — Long Harbour,
Wallace Partnership Group and
Consensus Business Group — were
quick to commission a poll asking
leaseholders if this was what they
wanted. The marketing firm Savanta
asked 1,000 leaseholders, and 70 per
cent said they would rather leave
building safety to freeholders who
manage buildings “as their everyday
job”, while 63 per cent said the new
responsibilities would lead to conflict
with neighbours. More than a third of
leaseholders (37 per cent) said they
would sell their home if they had to
take on more responsibility.More first-time buyer problems
First-time buyers are furious that the
stamp duty exemption for all property
purchases up to £500,000 has been
extended to investors. This week
Charlotte Nixon, a mortgage expert at
the financial adviser Quilter, had a few
ideas to level the playing field for
aspiring homeowners.
After a mass withdrawal of high
loan-to-value mortgages by lenders,
first-time buyers may need a 15 to
20 per cent deposit to buy. Nixon says
that the government could help them
out by temporarily increasing the
Lifetime Isa bonus from 25 per cent
to 40 per cent to boost their savings.
Nixon also believes the government
should underwrite some loans that
lenders think are too risky to offer
first-time buyers and double the
stamp duty surcharge for second-
homes to 6 per cent to show they are
“on the side of the homeowner rather
than the landlord”. Bold.Step into the editor’s office
We took extra care this week to make
sure we wouldn’t be scooped on the
sale of a flat in Gilmore House, the
home of John Walter, below, the first
editor of The Times.
Walter, a merchant and underwriter
who adored books, fell in love with
the mansion near Clapham Common,
which has busts of Shakespeare and
Milton in its façade, and bought it in- He ran into financial difficulties
and was almost evicted
in 1783, but launched
The Daily Universal
Register two years
later. The title was
changed to The Times
in 1788. Gilmore
House was divided
in 2009 and one
of the two-bed
flats is on sale
for £800,000.
Visit dexters.
co.uk or call
020 7350
1200 to find
out more.
Melissa
York
Above: Powderham
Castle, near Exeter
in DevonThe pandemic forced the Earl of Devon, with his family at Powderham
Castle, to swap a Michael Bublé concert for drive-in comedy nights