Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
One’s doer upper
King in £45million project to save a beautiful property
AS well as being head of state, the King has an ambitious £45million plan to save a stately home.
His Majesty’s charity The Prince’s Foundation bought Dumfries House in Ayrshire, Scotland, in 2007.
He never planned to live there but hoped to make it a visitor attraction, helping to regenerate the region.
The estate stretches over 2,000 acres and includes an adventure playground as well as the 18th-century house.
The then Prince of Wales decided to buy it after the upkeep got too much for its previous owners.
His Majesty previously admitted the project was an “appalling risk”.
But he explains in documentary A
Royal Grand Design, airing next week: “I knew if we hadn’t stepped in and saved it, somebody would have bought it and said they had a great idea, you know for golf courses and things and it would never have worked.
“So it would have joined the list of yet more derelict country houses.”
Expert restorers on the ITV programme show how they saved pieces of furniture, including a priceless Chippendale bookcase, by hand.
The film, which is narrated by actor Richard E Grant, shows how the restoration was a huge project for the Prince’s Foundation.
In an article for Dumfries House Magazine a few years ago, the then Prince Charles wrote: “This project has been as much about people as it has about a physical place.
“The way that our local communities and our employees speak with such pride as to what has been achieved is enormously rewarding and wonderfully motivating.”
The house was inherited by the 2nd Marquess of
Bute in 1814 and remained in his family until the 7th Marquess sold it to the King a decade and a half ago.
The King is credited with saving it from disrepair, launching a
restaurant to cover costs. Today, visitors are asked to put £3 in an honesty box to visit the garden.
The estate’s B&B has 22 bedrooms and prices start at £140.
The estate is also used for education and training and is open to the public all year-round. Dumfries House recently appeared on an episode of the BBC’S The Repair Shop, where the King visited the workshop on site. A Royal Grand Design, Wednesday November 30, ITV, 9pm.