Embattled Earl turns family seat into ‘a posh B&B’
Ship-shape Macca pushes the boat out
HE WAS cut out of his ‘ callous’ stepmother’s £33 million will and this week suffered the indignity of seeing her beneficiaries sell some of the family treasures worth nearly £2 million at Christie’s.
But, far from being reduced to despair, I can reveal Earl Bathurst has been spurred into action — by turning his family’s estate into a ‘posh B&B’.
It’s a startling move by Allen Bathurst, who succeeded as 9th Earl on his father ‘ Barmy’ Bathurst’s death in 2011.
Though 3,000 acres of parkland and woodland are open to members of the public, ‘The Mansion’, as the family seat is known, is screened from the adjacent town of Cirencester by a 40fthigh yew hedge and has remained resolutely private.
But that is about to change with ‘posh B&B’, as the Earl’s wife, Sara, describes it. ‘It will be quite fun,’ trills Countess Bathurst, who envisages guests having their own sitting room as well as bedroom. ‘In the morning, we will give them a lovely breakfast and maybe I will give them a bit of a tour.’
It’s not the only innovation which the Bathursts are about to initiate. ‘We are going to start doing weddings,’ explains the Countess, though emphasising that The Mansion isn’t about to become a Las Vegas ‘chapel of love’. ‘I don’t want to put in a revolving door,’ she says, adding that the number of ceremonies will be ‘very limited — about half a dozen a year’, with ‘ maybe some niche corporate events within the house to help pay the bills’.
With an estate extending to 15,000 Gloucestershire acres, such matters might normally be thought of negligible concern. But that changed with publication of the Dowager Countess’s will last November.
Gloria Bathurst, ‘Barmy’ Bathurst’s second wife, left almost all her personal £33.2 million fortune — much of it heirlooms and property in Bathurst hands for generations ( and bequeathed to the stepmother, I should add) — to Grant White, an interior designer based in Fulham, and New Yorker Geoffrey Bradfield.
In doing so, reflected Allen Bathurst, this ‘ callous woman’ broke his late father’s trust, and inflicted ‘a terrible tragedy’ on the family.
HE’S probably the most famous musician in the world, with a net worth of £938 million — but Sir Paul McCartney still prefers the simple things in life.
The 78- year- old former Beatle is on holiday in The Hamptons with his wife, Nancy Shevell, 60.
This week the singer enjoyed some time alone on his beloved Sunfish dinghy, which he named Linda in homage to his first wife, who died in 1998.
Sporting a plain white
T-shirt and blue shorts, the father of five sailed his boat around the bay before cooling off with a swim. Emerging from the sea, yoga enthusiast Macca showed off the figure he keeps in shape with his stringent exercise regime.
‘I do a bit of the crosstrainer, a bit of running, a bit of cardio and then I do some weights, some abs on the Swiss ball, before ending up on the mat doing a few stretches,’ he has said.
Sounds like a hard day’s night.