Bricks&Mortar 25
survive Covid?
Lady Derby is usually a competitive
dressage rider, but her household staff
are furloughed so she has had to wield
the feather duster herself. “These big
houses take an enormous amount of
energy,” she says. “Yes, you can get a
robot hoover, but I’d worry about the
gilt furniture.”
At Inveraray Castle the duchess
has been on housekeeping duty; her
husband, the 13th duke, has taken on
“caretaking, gardening, forestry” while
she has been clearing the attics and
supervising their three children.
“Country houses will survive this
because it is in their nature to do so,”
says the heritage consultant John Hoy,
a former chief executive of Blenheim
Palace. “No stately home owner wants to
be the generation of the house that folds.”
Marcus Binney, the chairman of Save
Europe’s Heritage, agrees. “Country-
house [owners] are resilient and can
think laterally,” he says. “It’s been a
desperate situation, with all the main
sources of income hit, but unlike indoor
museums, big houses have outdoor
resources that they can call on.”
For most of these houses substantial
outdoor events bring in a lot of income.
At Powderham Castle in Devon
the Courtenays, who have lived at
Powderham since 1390, had to swap
“an evening with Michael Bublé” for
drive-in comedy nights. These large-
scale events require more direction from
the government, says Charlie Courtenay,
the 19th Earl of Devon, Powderham’s
custodian and a crossbench peer in the
House of Lords. “It has been confusing
as to what we can and cannot do.
Weddings are crying out for guidance.”
This Easter was the first since 1959
that the house had been empty, but last
week it opened to visitors again. “It was
really disappointing. It’s a space that
needs to be shared to be appreciated.”
In the meantime many urgently
needed repairs have had to be put on
hold. “The government has thrown
money into heritage grants, but they’re
typically only accessible to charities, not
to private owners,” Lord Devon says.
According to Historic Houses, the
backlog of works totals about £1.5 billion,
and among these is Powderham’s
Victorian kitchen, where “a medieval
beam that holds up the castle is broken”.
In April Historic Houses surveyed its
members and found that a quarter had
no reserves to draw on. The Devons are
among them. “Powderham doesn’t sit
on cash. If anything is earned, it’s spent
because it has to be. There are so many
projects that need to be done, and
they’re not things that would just be nice
to do.” There were successive art and
furniture sales in the 1980s to 2000s, but
“we are not minded to do that again if
we can avoid it”, Lord Devon says.
All may not be lost if a second wave
is kept at bay as the heavy oak doors
start to open up — slowly. Burghley
House in Lincolnshire and Arundel
Castle in West Sussex reopen on August
5 and Dorney Court in Buckinghamshire
reopens today.
Next month the artist William
Roper-Curzon is hosting a week-long
painting course at Pylewell Park, his
father Lord Teynham’s Hampshire seat;
at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, home of
the Marquess of Cholmondeley, a
planned exhibition of Anish Kapoor’s
sculptures opened belatedly this month;
and in the Borders Edward Maitland-
Carew, who inherited Thirlestane Castle
in 2012, has turned the south wing into
holiday lets. “Financially it is going to be
hard, but we are lucky that we’re not
reliant on the day visitor as we’re not
opening this year,” he says.
Will the future ever brighten up for
the stately home? “Well,” Lady Derby
says, “Knowsley Hall is not going down
on my watch.”Lady Derby
at Knowsley
Hall in
Merseyside,
which is
suffering
from lost
visitor
income:
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homes
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