Wentworth Woodhouse to be saved by HM Government with £7.6m Heritage Grant

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/...atest-histori/

Wentworth Woodhouse to be saved by HM Government with £7.6m Heritage Grant

The aristocratic 'palace' is the largest private resident in Britain and largest facade in Europe

The Government confirmed in the Autumn Statement that it would step in to save Wentworth Woodhouse with a £7.6million grant. In October, The Telegraph reported on the battle to save it.

Wentworth Woodhouse, the largest private house in the country, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, is often billed as the “greatest historic house that nobody has ever heard of”. With a 606ft façade and 365 rooms including a 60ft square marble hall, it’s no shrinking violet.

Since 1948, the house has been in decline, mothballed and left to be a shadow of its former self.

Owned until 1989 by the Fitzwilliam family, the house is the product of a series of feuds. The Wentworth family had owned the estate since the 13th century, but it wasn’t until 1725 that Thomas Watson-Wentworth began building the house that stands today. His initial Baroque replacement of the existing Jacobean building was not admired by the Whig coterie he was trying to impress, so in 1734 he commissioned a Palladian “extension”, taking the form of a much larger house facing the opposite direction. In 1782 the property was passed to William, the fourth Earl Fitzwilliam, whose family made it the beloved centre of the community.

But the 20th century took its toll on both house and family. After the seventh Earl died in 1942, his son Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam inherited the house during a national coal shortage. Wentworth was targeted by the Labour minister for fuel and power, Manny Shinwell, who declared war on the Fitzwilliams, in an act of perceived class-spite. He ordered mining right up to the windows of the house, despite the coal stock having been described as “not worth the getting”.

Even the miners working on the land opposed the government’s plans: Joe Hall, the president of the Yorkshire branch of the National Union of Mineworkers, wrote to prime minister Clement Attlee, declaring it “against all common sense”. The land in front of the house looked, one historian said, like a “scene from Hell”.

Kenny hopes that reinvigorating the original northern powerhouse will mend some of these wounds. “It was Labour against the aristocracy and it drove the aristocracy out. There is a moral obligation on the Government to put this right,” she says.

Two years after the mining began, Peter Fitzwilliam was killed in a plane crash over France. Shortly after, the house was leased, then put up for sale and passed through a few hands until its final owner, Clifford Newbold, died in 2015, and the house was put on the market again. It attracted significant interest but no certain deals.

Now, Wentworth’s fortunes may be about to change dramatically. Kenny is working with Marcus Binney, president of campaign group Save Britain’s Heritage, and she is also chair of trustees of the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust, a body hoping to rescue this piece of architectural, industrial and political history for the nation.

The trust – whose board includes the Duke of Devonshire, Sir Philip Naylor-Leyland Bt, a descendant of the Fitzwilliam family, and Lady Juliet Tadgell, daughter of the eighth Earl Fitzwilliam – is one of several bidders hoping to acquire the building for £7million. Proceedings have been delayed by ongoing litigation with the coal authority but engagement with interested parties has recently been able to recommence.

For Binney, time is of the essence. “Three of the trusts involved are winding down. They will run out of time if we don’t do it soon. It really is now or never.” He proposes a quadruple use for the house: a National Trust-run public opening of the main interiors and gardens; a catering and events space in the north wing; offices for small businesses in the stables; and 15 residential units for holiday lets and short-term leases.

Between the start of the century, around 1911 when the Liberals backed by Labour introduced staggered taxes and inheritance tax especially on aristocracy in spiteful class warfare, to now it is estimated Britain lost over a third of its stately homes. Anyone ever been to Alton Towers? That beautiful building, former stately home of the Earls of Staffordshire, stands as a shell of its former self when it was stripped out and left to crumble in the awful 1960s. In many ways it is lucky: at least the shell still remains whereas many have been lost forever.

The good news these days is that of those stately homes left and aristocratic palaces still occupied by the families, many are now managing to make them cost effective by opening much of the palace up to the public and hosting parties, wedding functions and all sorts in the houses and on the grounds. As Wentworth shows though, its clear we're not going to allow ever again what happened to so many others happen again.

Prince Charles recently saved Dumfies House, formerly owned by the Marquess' of Bute, in Ayreshire.

Thoughts?

[scottish]

Waste of money, leave it for someone to buy. It's private property.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Waste of money, leave it for someone to buy. It's private property.

Of historic value to the nation.

The Palace of Versailles was once the private property of the House of Bourbon but even Robespierre's lot didn't dare let it decay or bulldoze it because anyone with a civilised mind can see the beauty and heritage value in buildings like this. Maybe you should like engage with some of the history/culture of your country and realise there's things more important than money.

[Catchy]

It's beautiful, never heard of it but glad it's been saved.

[Alkaz]

Im honestly so surprised it wasn't snapped up years ago and turned into a hotel so it's nice to see that it will be kept and restored for the nation. You need to save buildings like this, it's part of our history!

[FlyingJesus]

These places need to be opened up and have some sort of structure to the running of the place. Castle Goring near me has recently been bought up by Lady C (she supposedly went on I'm A Celeb to try getting the funds/publicity to fix it up) and that's another place that I never knew about despite being a stone's throw away, and allegedy if she manages to restore it to a safe state she's planning on opening it as an attraction of sorts in order to afford the maintenance which is exactly what ought to be done with these places

[-:Undertaker:-]

@FlyingJesus;

There's quite a few and its a shame a lot of people don't know about them or visit them.

I've been to Croxteth Hall which is about fifteen minutes from where I live which was the home of the Earls of Sefton until the last Earl died in 1979 and it's just had the Queen Anne wing restored and now runs effectively hosting parties, weddings and all of that.

Infact on the original deeds to our house the landowner is the Earl of Sefton which is a nice link to the past.




And Speke Hall which was owned by numerous untitled Catholic families.

Visited here like two summers ago, around forty minutes from where I live.

[FlyingJesus]

Oh there are hundreds yeah if not thousands, stately homes and gardens are all over the place and so many of them are just poorly managed if managed at all. Leonardslee about an hour from me is an absolutely outstanding place with one of the biggest landscaped gardens in the country and has had a colony of wallabies for over a century (**** knows why but it's cool ok) and it had a museum area to it as well but then it got sold and the new owners didn't want the hassle of it so closed it to the public and now I imagine it's enjoyed only by the staff who maintain it... so who are they maintaining it for? Bizarre choice by the owner