Key to a stately home for the middle classes

and 60s are bridging the gap between their budgets and their aspirations by signing up to “property guardian” schemes.

The schemes provide the opportunity to live in impressive properties including stately homes, churches and manor houses with grounds for less than the price of a flat share.

According to Camelot, one of the biggest guardian agencies, interest from older residents is gathering at such a pace that nearly half (42pc) of its clients are now aged 35 to 65.

Although guardianship – which is viewed by some as a form of organised squatting – is usually associated with “generation rent” and struggling to get on the property ladder, just 11pc of Camelot’s guardians are between 18 and 25.

Agencies are even starting to accept property guardians in their 70s, saying a growing number of older people are opting to live in a community, rather than in a retirement property, where they may become lonely.

Divorce, which can mean financial hardship, and reducing housing costs to help fund a business are other factors driving the change. Jacqueline McIntyre Campbell, 59, a former BBC employee, paid £250 a month last year to live in a 12-bedroom Victorian stately home while she was setting up a new vegan bistro in Ayr.

“The cheap rent suited me while I was setting up my restaurant, and the fact that bills were included meant I didn’t have to worry about nasty surprises each month,” she said.

“I loved the deep windows which I could sit in and look up the main street on to the park and the railway line. The gardens were also phenomenal.” Typically rooms cost £200 to £350 a month including bills, less than half the average UK rent, which stood at £746 a month in April.

Guardians stay in properties for months or years while the building awaits planning permission for conversion. Tenants can expect to share with up to 20 others and are asked to leave at short notice once a project is ready to begin.

Sophie Helas-Kwo, who lives in Oswald Manor House, a 19th-century pile in Durham, through a firm called Ad Hoc Property, said: “Sometimes when I’m coming up the long drive, I have to pinch myself as it’s hard to believe I actually live here in a place as amazing as this.”

She shares the manor with a hosptial head of radiology and a retired teacher, and they often share the cooking.

Andy Stanton, of Global Guardians, another firm, said: “People often have a perception of guardianship as professional squatting, but that’s very different from the reality. It’s now normal for professionals including barristers, people who work in government and retirees to take part in schemes.”