{"id":10097,"date":"2022-04-22T14:15:44","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T12:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homesandantiques.com\/?p=17060"},"modified":"2022-04-22T15:22:26","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T13:22:26","slug":"meet-the-custodians-the-guardians-of-britains-stately-homes","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/rss_feed\/meet-the-custodians-the-guardians-of-britains-stately-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the custodians: the guardians of Britain\u2019s stately homes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Ellie Tennant\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 22 April 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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The Countess of Carnarvon<\/h2>\n

Highclere Castle<\/strong>Highclere Park, Newbury<\/em>\nMy husband, George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon, inherited Highclere Castle<\/a> in 2001 when his father (Lord Porchester, 7th Earl of Carnarvon) died. It was first opened to the public in 1988.<\/em><\/p>\n

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When Geordie first asked me to Highclere for a lunch party, I didn\u2019t know I was going to end up marrying him, or running the place! I hadn\u2019t given much thought to what running a stately home entailed. It\u2019s quite a big enterprise \u2013 I have lots of lists, tasks and meetings. My husband acts as chairman and I\u2019m CEO. Before this, I worked at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.<\/p>\n

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The Countess of Carnarvon and her husband George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

There\u2019s been a home here for at least 1,200 years. The earliest written record is 749AD, when there was a building here owned by the Bishops of Winchester. I have a sense of continuity that the place and the landscape gives me, as well as the house. It\u2019s an amazing privilege to live here. When you drive in the park, you think: it\u2019s so beautiful. But it\u2019s not mine. It\u2019s just ours for a while.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We plant trees. I was admiring an immense cedar tree the other day, which some amazing person planted 250 years ago. It\u2019s good to remember to plant a tree for somebody else to enjoy in 200 years time. Nature is important to me.<\/p>\n

We have a farm and my husband and I love gardening. There isn\u2019t much privacy here, but I\u2019m one of six sisters so I never had any privacy growing up. There are rooms that aren\u2019t open to the public, but when nobody\u2019s here, we use the library and so on.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the weight of it all is immense; it\u2019s an immense house. There are 300 rooms and everything always needs mending! At the moment the water tanks above the tearoom need fixing.<\/p>\n

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The library, well known by fans of TV drama Downton Abbey.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It was so odd during the Covid-19 lockdown \u2013 quiet and empty. I don\u2019t think the house has ever been closed down like that before. A lot of the rooms were dark. I didn\u2019t open the shutters because otherwise I would have had to close them all again and it takes too long. It\u2019s been a business catastrophe.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been through recessions before, when business contracts, but usually only by 20 per cent. Our turnover this year will have fallen by 80 per cent. It\u2019s like going over a cliff without a parachute. We were working 12 hours a day, seven days a week at one point to reallocate tickets. It was exhausting.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t look backwards though. Every day is another beautiful day. John Clare wrote: \u2018And what is life? An hourglass on the run\u2019. That\u2019s where I start. It\u2019s a troubled, brittle world. Lots of things don\u2019t matter, but how you treat people matters. Kindness matters.<\/p>\n

Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey, and his wife Emma are wonderful friends. Highclere and homes are about heart and people, not just stones, so in that way, we\u2019ve brought Highclere into the minds and hearts of many people. It\u2019s an anchor of reassurance and we\u2019ve managed to share that. That\u2019s what England\u2019s visible history is about.<\/p>\n

You might also like<\/strong> behind the scenes of filming Downton Abbey<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Antony Smith, Custodian<\/h2>\n

The Priest House<\/strong>North Lane, West Hoathly, West Sussex<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known this house all my life. My grandparents lived over the road. When my cousin rang up one evening in 1988 and said the custodian job was available, it seemed like a good idea, so I applied, and here I am over 30 years later. It was meant to be.<\/p>\n

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Antony Smith, custodian of The Priest House.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n
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Built in 1430, the house has nearly 600 years of history. Henry VIII gave it to Cromwell and it was owned by Anne of Cleves, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I before it was sold and became a family home. In 1908, local landowner John Godwin King restored it and opened it as a museum<\/a>. He gave it to the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1935.<\/p>\n

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The ancient kitchen fireplace in The Priest House.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

I live in one third of the building and the other two thirds is open to the public. People can wander around the outside and peer through the windows, but you get used to that. I do everything \u2013 it\u2019s a very strange job. I look after the house, label the exhibits, clean, give tours, sort out the garden and do a lot of administration.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mind the vacuuming, but I\u2019m not so keen on the paperwork. You have to be a jack-of-all-trades. Basic woodwork comes in handy. It\u2019s a fairly solitary life, but people can appear at any time so you have to be prepared to drop everything. It wouldn\u2019t suit everyone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s a friendly house with a personality, which I know sounds strange. People think it must be spooky \u2013 we get ghost hunters \u2013 but I think the house likes me. During the lockdown earlier this year, it felt very odd. The house doesn\u2019t like to be empty. It creaks more when there\u2019s nobody around. It\u2019s cold and dark and damp, but that\u2019s all part of the fun. I think this is the job I was born to do.<\/p>\n

You might also like<\/strong> the most haunted stately homes to visit<\/a><\/p>\n

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Dr Stephen Pickles, Owner & Custodian<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

Bidston Lighthouse<\/strong>Wilding Way, Wirral<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u2018Back in 2010 we were living in a three-bedroom semi in Manchester when my wife, Mandy, searched online for Grade II-listed buildings within a 30-mile radius of the laboratory where I worked. Bidston Lighthouse<\/a> came up. We put in an offer and found ourselves owning a lighthouse! We sometimes think we were meant to have it.<\/p>\n

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Dr Stephen Pickles, owner and custodian of Bidston Lighthouse.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

As a child growing up in Australia, I used to dream of having a weather room on top of a tower; that\u00a0dream came flooding back to\u00a0me when we saw the lighthouse here. It looked rundown and foreboding, but it was striking \u2013 like something out of Mordor from Lord of the Rings.<\/p>\n

The present Bidston Lighthouse was built by Mersey Docks and Harbour Board in 1873 and served as Liverpool\u2019s principal lighthouse until 1913. The first lighthouse on Bidston Hill was built much earlier, in 1771, further from the body of water it lit than any other lighthouse in the world, ever.<\/p>\n

Bidston was the birthplace of a revolution in lighthouse optics \u2013 the tower housed the biggest reflector of its kind. When we moved in, we soon realised we\u2019d taken on more than we\u2019d bargained for.<\/p>\n

I wondered if other people were in a similar position so searched online and found the Association of Lighthouse Keepers \u2013 a community of 800 retired lighthouse keepers and lighthouse enthusiasts. One of my first posts on the forum was: \u2018We\u2019ve got a leaky lighthouse, how do we fix it?\u2019 I have a lot of buckets that I move around!<\/p>\n

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Bidston Lighthouse tower is privately owned but often opened\u00a0to the public.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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There are great views in all directions from the lamp room, so we thought we might turn it into a lounge, but as we came to realise the historical significance of the site we didn\u2019t want to just keep it for ourselves.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m so many things to this building: tour guide, web manager, janitor, owner \u2013 it\u2019s a wonderful privilege and also a terrible responsibility! The upkeep is expensive. The glazing in the lamp room needs replacing and the copper<\/a> roof will need some repairs soon, too.<\/p>\n

I feel as though I\u2019m not telling my story anymore, I\u2019m telling the story of the building, a story which has to be told. In many ways, my own purpose has been subsumed by that of the lighthouse.\u2019<\/p>\n

The history of Bidston Lighthouse<\/strong><\/p>\n

Liverpool had a problem: ships approaching the port couldn\u2019t be seen because Bidston Hill was in the way, so a look out tower was incorporated into the 1771 lighthouse. Flag runners were employed to watch for ships from there and then run along the hill and raise the correct company\u2019s flag on a wooden pole, warning of its arrival. It meant supervisors in the docks could get their workforce ready to unload the ship. At one point there were over 100 separate flagpoles stretching for half a mile along the hilltop. This system was replaced in 1826 when a semaphore-based telegraph system was introduced, followed by an electric telegraph system in 1861.<\/p>\n

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David Scott, Custodian<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

The Homewood<\/strong>Portsmouth Road, Esher, Surrey<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Homewood<\/a> is a work of art \u2013 a striking building designed by architect Patrick Gwynne (1913-2003) at the age of 25 for his parents. Towards the end of his life, he gave the house to the National Trust.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been here for over 12 years. Before, I was working in a city banking job, but when our daughter was born in 2006 I decided\u00a0I wanted a change and applied for the role of live-in custodian.<\/p>\n

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Custodian of The Homewood, David Scott and his family.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

I think of Patrick every day. He wanted the house to be lived in so it wouldn\u2019t become static. I was pruning rhododendrons the other day and I found one of Patrick\u2019s little Dymo tape labels \u2013 a time capsule from the past.<\/p>\n

Every time you open a cupboard, you find a note from him. He completely informs our lives. The swimming pool is a crazy shape and my theory is Patrick didn\u2019t want it to be covered \u2013 it\u2019s hard work clearing the leaves out in the autumn, but it looks far more beautiful this way. He also installed sloping windowsills so nobody could put anything on them!<\/p>\n

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A view from the garden of the exterior of The Homewood, Surrey. The Homewood is a Modernist house built in 1938 by architect Patrick Gwynne. National Trust Images\/Stuart Cox<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n
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The house is a dramatic presence. It\u2019s not austere modernism \u2013 square and boxy \u2013 it\u2019s flowing, English modernism, with textured walls and lots of detailing. It\u2019s a drama that reveals itself slowly. All the main rooms are on the first floor, and a lot of people gasp when the living room door opens because there are 12 metres of glass and views into the tree canopy.<\/p>\n

It has wooden floors, so if friends come over in high heels, we ask them to leave their shoes in the hall. In our family, there are five of us \u2013 myself, my wife and our daughter, the dog and the house. We always have to think of the house!<\/p>\n

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Steps down to the garden, over the swimming pool, at The Homewood, Surrey. National Trust Images\/Stuart Cox<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

I love the garden, but it\u2019s an all-year- round obligation. Then there are National Trust personnel and contractors to manage. The alarm always malfunctions when you\u2019re on holiday abroad, and if the roof is going to leak, chances are it will happen when there is snow on the ground. You have to be calm in a crisis.<\/p>\n

You might also like<\/strong> Britain\u2019s most Instagrammed stately homes<\/a><\/p>\n

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Lucy Hutchings, Head of Hampton Court Palace<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

Hampton Court Palace<\/strong>East Molesey, Surrey<\/em><\/p>\n

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As a little girl, I always dreamt of playing in castles. Before becoming Head of Hampton Court Palace<\/a>, I worked for English Heritage for 10 years, before managing Dover Castle.<\/p>\n

Hampton Court Palace is a world- renowned heritage attraction, so when this job came up, I jumped at the chance. I came on a research trip and I remember walking into Base Court and being in absolute awe \u2013 goose bumps up my arms. I knew it was where I needed to be.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been here for two years now and it was the best move I ever made. Coming to work every day is an absolute joy. You\u2019re surrounded by some of the most incredible history. Everybody learns at school about Henry VIII and his six wives \u2013 that happened here!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so important to make time to just stop and absorb what\u2019s around you. Sometimes I stand in Base Court and wonder what it looked like 500 years ago. What did it smell like? How noisy was it?<\/p>\n

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Lucy Hutchings, Head of Hampton Court Palace.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I moved on-site\u00a0permanently in March and,\u00a0while I do live in a palace, my\u00a0humble lodgings are quite\u00a0\u2018studenty\u2019 \u2013 a lot of my furniture is in storage. I live right next door to the palace and my commute is a 30-second walk from my front door to the office. Part of the building is a holiday cottage, a Landmark Trust property, so visitors can come and stay.<\/p>\n

One of the perks is having the keys and being able to roam at my leisure. There are over 1,300 rooms here to explore. Usually I\u2019m busy managing the palace, but in lockdown I had a good nose around, which was eye- opening.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m an absolute wimp, so half the time when exploring I have to take somebody else with me because there are some really creepy parts, and it\u2019s renowned for being haunted. About 50 per cent of my staff here have experienced things they can\u2019t explain \u2013 doors slamming, hearing footsteps and so on.<\/p>\n

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The Great Hall sits at the very heart of the Tudor palace.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The palace is open to the public, but there are places\u00a0to hide away and pretend that you have a normal life if you\u00a0need to. I\u2019m strict about not working from home, ever. Since moving here, I\u2019ve taken up jogging. I can now do a few circuits of the East front gardens without passing out so, I\u2019ve improved!<\/p>\n

We usually welcome one million visitors a year and I manage a team of 150 people. As great as it was having this place to myself, it doesn\u2019t feel alive without people. It was lacking the energy that comes from having people enjoy the spaces. We\u2019re delighted to welcome everyone back.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/body><\/html>\n

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By Ellie Tennant Published: Friday, 22 April 2022 at 12:00 am The Countess of Carnarvon Highclere CastleHighclere Park, Newbury My husband, George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon, inherited Highclere Castle in 2001 when his father (Lord Porchester, 7th Earl of Carnarvon) died. It was first opened to the public in 1988. When Geordie first asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":10098,"template":"","categories":[1,41],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"12"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/04\/meet-the-custodians-the-guardians-of-britains-stately-homes-scaled.jpg",2560,1920,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/04\/meet-the-custodians-the-guardians-of-britains-stately-homes-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/04\/meet-the-custodians-the-guardians-of-britains-stately-homes-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/04\/meet-the-custodians-the-guardians-of-britains-stately-homes-768x576.jpg",768,576,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/04\/meet-the-custodians-the-guardians-of-britains-stately-homes-1024x768.jpg",800,600,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/04\/meet-the-custodians-the-guardians-of-britains-stately-homes-1536x1152.jpg",1536,1152,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/04\/meet-the-custodians-the-guardians-of-britains-stately-homes-2048x1536.jpg",2048,1536,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Ellie Tennant Published: Friday, 22 April 2022 at 12:00 am The Countess of Carnarvon Highclere CastleHighclere Park, Newbury My husband, George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon, inherited Highclere Castle in 2001 when his father (Lord Porchester, 7th Earl of Carnarvon) died. It was first opened to the public in 1988. When Geordie first asked…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/10097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}