KING OF THE
298 £ 406 m £ 36 m ▲
JONATHAN RUFFER
FinanceRich List 2017
CASTLE
82 • thesundaytimes.co.uk/richlistB
uild it and they will come could
have been said about Jonathan
Ruff er. Staging a show
encapsulating 2,000 years of
English history, staff ed by more
than 1,000 local volunteers
with li ttle or no theatrical
experience, over 1 7 nights in a fi eld in
northeast England might be deemed the
height of folly. Yet this is tied into a wider
challenge of turning the former coalmining
town of Bishop Auckland into an
international tourist destination.
Having achieved a runaway success
with his show Kynren — back for a second
season in two months’ time — Ruff er is
fi rmly focused on putting Bishop Auckland
on the tourist map. It may be a big ask, but
when you have £140m to put behind the
endeavour , matched with Ruff er’s devout
enthusiasm, you have a sporting chance of
success. The 65-year-old fi nancier was
raised 30 miles away in Stokesley and
spend s more than half his week in Bishop
Auckland, dedicated to the production and
the renovation of its setting.
Kynren — the Anglo-Saxon word for
kindred — played for 15 nights to rave
reviews and packed houses last summer,
against the backdrop of Auckland Castle.
More than 1 00,000 rolled up, one fi fth
from outside the immediate region, fi ve
from Kabul, in Afghanistan. The show
followed his purchase from the Church of
England of 1 2 paintings by the Spanish
painter Francisco de Zurbaran (of Jacob
and his sons ) for £15m , what Ruff er calls
“a stake in the ground”. He then bought the
church’s Auckland Castle home , the former
seat of the Bishop of Durham.
His friend Jacob Rothschild said thatbuying the paintings without the castle
that housed them was like unlocking
a door and not pushing it open. With
Kynren, Ruff er took the venture beyond
the castle walls and outside the realms of
a rich man’s folly.
“I want to see Bishop Auckland and the
region benefi t socially, economically,
morally and spiritually. We are committed
to £140m at present,” says Ruff er, in his
sitting room within the four-storey lodge
in the castle grounds that is now his home.
Valued this year at £406m, based on his
stake in the City fi nance business Ruff erLLP , he is one of few people in the country
who can aff ord philanthropy on such
a scale. The decision to get so personally
involved is driven by a combination of
religious faith and a certain discomfort with
the wealth that success has brought him.
“I have never been interested in money;
it’s an extremely dull thing. The way the
City is at the minute, if you happen to
become successful the remuneration is
absurd. The bigger question is what you
should do with that money. One thing you
can do is ratchet up your expenditure —
spend it on yachts and paintings. But it’sThe fi nancier Jonathan
Ruff er is on a mission to
regenerate the northeast,
investing £140m and
staging a smash-hit
theatrical epic, Kynren.
Alastair McCall reports
PETER HAYGARTH