‘People come to remember Diana, or look at the house’
Earl Spencer talks to Eleanor Doughty about caring for 500 years of family history at Althorp, including his sister’s final resting place
The first thing to establish about Althorp is how to pronounce it. Earl Spencer goes for “All-thrup”. Locals say “All-thorp”. The confusion comes from the days before the standardisation of spelling. He has seen it spelt “Althrope” and “Altroup”.
“It sounds like wilful snobbery but I think of it as ‘All-thrup’. At Eton my name was Viscount Althorp and I gave up and called myself ‘All-thorp’,” he says. “The history master said ‘How ridiculous, you can’t even pronounce your own name.’”
Lord Spencer, who is the 9th Earl, a historian and the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, doesn’t use his title much. “I feel like Earl Spencer when I’m here. I’m Charles Spencer everywhere else,” he says. When his grandfather Albert, the 7th Earl, died in 1975, the family moved from Park House on the Sandringham estate to Althorp. It was a wrench, says Lord Spencer, who was 12 at the time. “It sounds grand but [we had] no neighbours except the fallow deer. It was difficult to start again.”
Norfolk is still home. Althorp, not so much. “It cannot be home in the conventional sense. For 300 years my family perambulated between Spencer House in London, a villa in Wimbledon and a house in Norfolk,” he says. This is close to what he does now with his third wife, Karen, Countess Spencer, a Canadian philanthropist – though the Wimbledon villa has gone, and Spencer House is leased to Lord Rothschild’s RIT Capital Partners. They use Althorp a handful of weekends a year. “It has always been a magnificent project rather than home. It’s a family headquarters, part of the nation’s heritage.”
History is all over the walls at Althorp. “The story of England over the last 500 years is encapsulated in the portraits,” says Lord Spencer, who
adds a piece a year to the collection. In the picture gallery hangs Van Dyck’s War and Peace; opposite is the French Duc de Chevreuse with his hound, with portraits by Sir Peter Lely in between. Among these is Britannia by Mitch Griffiths, a contemporary addition representing “the state of modern Britain”, with her shield replaced by a CCTV camera. In the south drawing room hangs a painting of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Sir Joshua Reynolds; in the billiard room, a daring portrait of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria hunting sidesaddle.
There have been Spencers at Althorp since 1486, when John Spencer, the 1st Earl Spencer, held a tenancy. In 1508, the family bought the estate, and in 1688, Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, built the present house. When his son Charles Spencer married Lady Anne Churchill, daughter of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, this title, linked to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire came to the Spencers. “Their eldest son, Charles, became 3rd Duke [of Marlborough] and moved to Blenheim, while the second son, John, whose son became 1st Earl Spencer, got Althorp,” explains Lord Spencer.
Today, the Duke of Marlborough’s family are Spencer-Churchills, after permission was granted in 1817 to reconnect the Churchill name to the family, in memory of the 1st Duke. “Winston Spencer-Churchill [grandson of the 7th Duke] became Winston Churchill because he had a strong ancestor worship for the 1st Duke,” says Lord Spencer. “He was primarily a member of the Spencer family.”
In a parallel universe, Spencer could have ended up running Blenheim, but he inherited Althorp, aged 27, in 1992. In the preceding years, his stepmother, Raine, Countess Spencer, redecorated parts of the house, selling key pieces of art, including four Van Dycks of the Apostles. “It was done so covertly that proper prices weren’t reached. That was the tragedy.” When she left after her husband’s death, Lord Spencer redecorated a room at a time. “It was dizzying to look at,” he says.
Today, the library is painted 11 different shades of ivory and white, with oak floorboards; previously it was a “stippled yellow paint with faux malachite pillars and a busy carpet”. Over the past 27 years, he has re-roofed, re-plumbed the house and replaced the heating system. The next job is to “upgrade the bits you can’t see”.
In the Eighties, Althorp was open to the public every day except Christmas Day. Now, it’s open in July and August, with an established literary festival. Althorp, six miles from Northampton, is not the kind of place one can go by accident. “You say you live in Northamptonshire and people look confused,” Lord Spencer says with a laugh. The house has about 20,000 visitors a year, who can be split into two groups: “Those who pay their respects to Diana, and those who come to look at the house”. “I’m thrilled when people remember Diana,” he says. “At the same time, if they just want to look at the paintings, I’m totally relaxed.”
Spencer was once told by his father that he should sell Althorp if needed. As well as the 90-room house, there’s a 13,500-acre estate, properties in Northamptonshire, Norfolk and Warwickshire, plus farming, forestry and fieldsports businesses. “There are days where you think, ‘I could do without this,’” he admits. The question is whether the next generation will be keen. “You can’t make your children care. You have to hope that something has bedded down when their turn comes,” he says.
Of his seven children – Lady Kitty, 28, Lady Eliza, 27, Lady Amelia, 27, Louis, Viscount Althorp, 25, the Hon Edmund, 15, Lady Lara, 13, and Lady Charlotte, seven – Spencer imagines that four do care about Althorp, “which isn’t a bad hit rate.” His eldest son, who is at drama school, is likely to inherit. With three elder daughters, he ponders primogeniture. “Is it any fairer that the eldest child gets it instead of the eldest male? Whatever you say is a selection.”
The Spencers have been in public life since the 16th century, when Sir John Spencer was knighted by Henry VIII. Lord Spencer, the 19th generation of his family at Althorp, considers his position. “When I took over, I walked through the saloon, which is hung with family portraits going back 500 years. It was like walking across the stage with an audience. I thought, ‘My goodness, it’s my turn to do something with the place.’”
‘It has always been a magnificent project rather than home... part of the nation’s heritage’
‘You can’t make your children care. You have to hope something has bedded down’