Life above stairs
Easter marks the opening of many historic houses, and for the families that run them, it’s a chance to see their hard work in action, says Anna Tyzack
For the past three weeks, Holkham Hall in Norfolk has been a frenzy of feather dusters and polish. Tapestries and paintings have been rehung and the lawns meticulously edged. Far from dreading the arrival of coach loads of visitors to his family seat, Viscount Coke, the son of the seventh Earl of Leicester, genuinely looks forward to Easter when the Palladian mansion reopens to the public. “I was born into it so it doesn’t seem odd at all,” says Lord Coke, 49, who lives at Holkham with his wife, Polly, and four children. “The public has been visiting since the house was completed in the 18th century. It was designed with a visitor’s circuit.” Easter weekend marks the reopening of almost all the 500 members of the Historic Houses Association. “It’s the first time families go out together,” says James Hervey-Bathurst, who is hosting an egg trail at Eastnor Castle, his 19th-century revivalist castle in Herefordshire. “And for us it is a chance to see all the changes we’ve made in action. I’m looking forward to watching children using our new rotor swing.” At Inveraray Castle, the seat of the Campbell Clan, visitors can admire the armoury hall with the tallest ceiling in Scotland, which was repaired and painted over the winter, a job that required 50 tons of scaffolding to be erected in the great hall. The Duke and Duchess of Argyll have spent the past week cautiously moving ancient muskets and helmets back into the hall. “I’m excited about unveiling all our hard work,” says Eleanor, Duchess of Argyll, who moved to the castle in 2002 when she married Torquhil, the 13th Duke of Argyll. “We’ve cleaned all the armoury ourselves. If my husband or I had a spare moment, we’d get polishing.” Today’s stately custodians, usually the second or third generation to have the public at large in their homes, are remarkably unsentimental about what could be seen as a massive intrusion. As Charles Courtenay, son and heir of the 18th Earl of Devon points out, Britain’s landed gentry have been opening their doors to the public since their great houses were built. It’s only since the Fifties that visitors have become a revenue stream. “You don’t build a stately home simply for your private enjoyment; these houses were built to be shown off,” says Courtenay, whose family seat, the 14th-century Powderham Castle in Devon, reopened this week. Charles Berkeley, whose family seat, Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, was one of the first houses to open to the public under new heritance tax laws in 1956, believes visitors are a small price to pay to keep a historic home in the family. He recalls an idyllic childhood playing in the castle’s dungeons, turrets and keep. “I did have to pose for visitors’ photos but I never minded,” says Berkeley, who is married to international event rider Daisy Berkeley and has a daughter, Mary. For a chatelaine who has not been raised in this environment, however, the lack of privacy can be overwhelming. “I found it extraordinary at first,” says the