capture a castle
They are the stuff of fairy tales — and you can live in one too, says Max Davidson
Do girls still have fantasies about Prince Charming sweeping them off their feet and saving them from a life of drudgery? You bet, judging by the popularity of Kenneth Branagh’s new Cinderella movie. You thought glass slippers and pumpkin coaches had passed their sell-by date? Wrong!
And these age- old fantasies don’t stop at Prince Charming, but extend to the gloriously over-the-top property he calls home. He might be a wizard with glass slippers, but his charms would fade pretty quickly if he lived in a twobedroom flat in Bournemouth.
Yes, turrets are back, along with the trimmings — grand ballrooms, sweeping staircases, glittering chandeliers. Fantasy properties, you might think. Pure Disneyland, with apple sauce. But they are also, believe it or not, available to buy, and at not totally ridiculous prices.
You might unable to buy Windsor Castle or Blenheim Palace, the grounds of which both feature in Cinderella. But there are some fabulous castles on the market, both in Britain and Europe.
In Italy alone, there are literally scores of them for sale, all with fascinating histories. Hard economic times have left the owners with no choice but to sell. The luxury real-estate company Lionard ( lionard.com) now has more than 70 castles in its portfolio, at prices ranging from £2 million to £14 million.
Last month, a castle on an island in an Umbria lake came on the market ( luxuryestate.com) for just under £3 million, less than the cost of a terrace house in central London. It comes with a church, a bell tower and 11 acres of land.
France also offers rich pickings for the castle-fancier. Just across the Channel, in Normandy, is a gorgeous 19th-century chateau on the market for ¤3.7 million — less than £3 million at current exchange rates. It comes with fish lakes and private woodland and is at the heart of the famous Calvados region ( chestertons-international.com).
Castles in the UK tend to be
A: slightly thinner on the ground. You are more likely to see them as the backdrops for TV series than on estate agents’ websites. But there are always a few on the market. Many of them, particularly the more remote scottish castles, at surprisingly reasonable prices.
The further you are prepared to live from London, the more bang you’ll get for your buck. There is a delightful 14th-century castle on the Isle of Bute on the market for £995,000 ( struttandparker.com).
Castles are notoriously expensive to maintain, of course. Last month it was announced that many of the priceless heirlooms at Castle Howard in Yorkshire — where Brideshead revisited was filmed — would have to be sold to balance the books. But such is the magic of castles that people completely forget about heating bills.
Everyone knows the old saying that an Englishman’s home is his castle. A love of them, preferably surrounded by a moat and approached via a drawbridge, lurks deep in the national psyche.
‘For many people, to live in a castle is to live out a fantasy,’ says James Mackenzie, of strutt & Parker. ‘They are packed with history and truly are a unique feature of the British landscape.
‘We find that buyers are prepared to pay a premium.’
Let the Ugly sisters live in dreary suburban semis. Cinders and her man want something better, something that will scrub up well in Hello! magazine when they flog their wedding pictures. Not just a classy property, but a classy property with a classy past.
It is often the history of castles, as much as their architecture, which appeals to wealthy house-hunters. Mamhead House in Devon, on the market for £9.5 million ( struttand
parker.com), is less than 200 years old, but has a back-story to rival a medieval romance. The property was built in 1833 as a ‘marriage house’ for robert Newman and his new bride Mary. The initials of the couple appear entwined throughout the house.
Above the front door, and repeated elsewhere, is the family motto, Ubi
amor ibi fides — ‘ Where there is love, there is trust.’ sigh.
Villas in the Caribbean are all very well. But for the true romantic, nothing will ever beat a castle.