Henry Tempest
Landowner who revived the fortunes of his family’s dilapidated estate in North Yorkshire
HENRY TEMPEST, who has died aged 93, was the 31st generation of his family to live on the land they hold in North Yorkshire; latterly – meaning since 1597 – their seat has been Broughton Hall, the 97-room stately home that in 1970 Tempest gallantly took on and revived from near ruin.
The Tempests are thought to have come to England with the Conqueror. Piers Tempest was knighted at Agincourt in 1415 and Sir Richard Tempest was with Richard III before Bosworth Field.
A Roger Tempest was in Cardinal Wolsey’s retinue at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The stubborn refusal of later generations to renounce Roman Catholicism, however, led to heavy penalties and eventually martyrdom. Nonetheless, the Tempests remained one of the leading recusant families. Mass continues to be celebrated (in the old rite) in the chapel for which a licence was granted in 1453.
The present house, originally extended in the 18th century, was remodelled by William Atkinson and others in the 19th, when the family held a baronetcy. The Italianate terraced gardens were laid out then and sit amid 3,000 acres of parkland on the southern edge of the Dales.
As a younger son, Henry Tempest had not expected to inherit any of this. He was born in London on April 2 1924, the last of three children. His father, Brigadier General Roger Tempest, had been appointed DSO and CMG in the Great War, but his experiences had left him deaf and he was a distant figure to his children.
Their mother Valerie (née Glover) had been a great beauty in London. Country life was alien to her. Henry’s contact with her was largely restricted to being presented for inspection before bed. Although there were 22 indoor servants to attend to the family’s wants, for much of the time he led a semi-feral existence wandering the estate with dogs and ponies.
Henry was sent to the Oratory School and then read Mathematics and Physics at Christ Church, Oxford. But in 1943, he was called up and commissioned into the Scots Guards. On his 21st birthday, having crossed the Rhine with his company – hardened Glaswegians and Geordie miners – he received a head wound during fierce fighting. He insisted that his wounded men be put into an ambulance while he waited for another. His courtesy saved his life; the vehicle was destroyed by a landmine.
His father died in 1948 and Henry’s brother Stephen inherited Broughton. Henry then endured a glum time as a salesman before seeking adventure in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). He built a house on a tract of bush and worked as an accountant in Lusaka, where his clients included Robert Mugabe. For entertainment he played polo on a tobacco plantation where horses and riders alike were treated to a post-match tiffin of beer from a silver punch bowl.
Out there he met Janet Longton. She drove a sports car, smoked cigarettes and loved dancing, but was hopeless with money; the relationship blossomed. They married in 1957. But the winds of change blowing through Africa soon convinced Tempest that it was time to return home.
He and his family landed in England with no money and nowhere to live. An aunt let them have a flat in her own stately home, Kirtlington Park, near Bicester, Oxfordshire. Later she gave Henry a plot of land where he again built his own house. There his children enjoyed a blissful upbringing, although their au pairs, postmen and the local sheep came to fear their Rhodesian Ridgeback dog.
Tempest’s persistence got him the position of bursar in the department of Nuclear Physics at Oxford University. Encountering, in the early 1960s, some of the earliest computers, he taught himself to write programs in one of its first languages, Fortran. He claimed to dream in numbers and created a highly effective accounting system for the department.
Nevertheless, money remained tight. Having driven to a house party in his ageing motor, he was told by his host’s chauffeur that he would rather not wash the car in case it fell apart.
But in 1970 his brother Stephen died unmarried and Henry inherited Broughton, which was in dire repair. Its finances had been mishandled, its income had been depleted by the fall in agricultural rents and there were huge debts to pay. The house had a leaking roof and dry rot. Death duties were punitive and many thought Tempest should sell up.
Yet centuries of recusant genes sustained Tempest and he vowed to save Broughton for future generations. Assets were sold (among them the local pub, The Tempest Arms), debts restructured and farms reorganised. For a time, holes in the roof were plugged with Blu-tac.
Rather than persist with agriculture, Tempest saw the potential of the buildings from the time when the estate had been self-sufficient with its own gasworks, brewery, home farm and a water mill. Eventually his son Roger, who now runs Broughton, converted many of these into offices, creating a business park for dozens of companies, which has since acted as a model for others.
With the estate back on an even keel, Tempest became active in local affairs. He was a founding member of North Yorkshire County Council, a deputy lieutenant and a governor of Skipton’s grammar school, which he helped to prevent from going comprehensive.
But he was not a conventional public figure, preferring to follow a logic of his own. He was obsessed with finding a rumoured cache of buried arms and church plate and spent much time digging for this, both inside and outside the house. Drains were another fascination. The secret workings of those at Broughton were known only to himself and Carl, the tractor driver.
Charged with boiling an egg, he did so in a kettle to save on water for a cup of tea. Tempest was the inspiration for the genially eccentric peer in his daughter Annie’s cartoon strip for Country Life, “Tottering-by-gently”.
A Knight of Malta, the Roman Catholic charitable order, for more than 65 years, Tempest’s other great enthusiasms were horses and cars. Known for his champagne cocktails spiced with brandy, he celebrated his 80th birthday by opening a bottle atop the hill he had just climbed and marked his 90th by sliding down the bannisters at Broughton.
The house has been used as a set for several Hollywood films and television series, among them Wuthering Heights (1992). In later years, Tempest would often wander in and out of shot in these, wondering if he was missing a good party.
He is survived by his wife, their three daughters and two sons.
Henry Tempest, born April 2 1924, died May 6 2017