For rent: how to make money from a country pile

Lydney Park Estate is a Victorian pile set in manicured gardens and surrounded by a deer park. The Grade IIlisted house sprawls over more than 17,000 sq ft and features marble bathtubs, original fireplaces and panelling, as well as a sleek modern designer kitchen. There are staff quarters and museum rooms, which contain findings from a Roman site within the grounds.

While the almost five acres of gardens are open to the public for a couple of days a week in springtime, the public now also has the chance to live in the mansion, which is less than two miles from the town of Lydney, Gloucestershire. Albeit for a princely sum of £16,000 a month.

Since the 1720s the estate has been owned by the Bathurst family, who built the current house in the 1870s. The fourth Charles Bathurst was ennobled for services to food supplies in the First World War and became a viscount in 1935 for his work as governor general of New Zealand. However, the current viscount, Rupert, started renting out his ancestral home at the end of 2021.

“Lydney Park was a wonderful place to live when we had a young family. Now our children are of an age where they prefer living in London and that’s where we spend most of our time,” says Viscount Bathurst, an artist, who rents out his home with Savills Cheltenham.

“Renting it out for others to enjoy also means we have an income to help pay for the inevitable necessary repairs which a house of this age and size requires from time to time,” he adds.

There has been a dramatic increase in grand country properties available to rent, with 120pc more to-let listings of at least £5,000 a month in rural settlements in 2023 than there were in 2022.

The number of listings asking for £ 20,000 a month or more also increased by 110pc in that time, according to the property analytics company TwentyCi. The number of listings above £5,000 is also 81pc higher than in 2019, before the Covid pandemic.

Jason Corbett, of Rowallan Buying Agents, says: “Some of these country houses are truly spectacular and are unlikely ever to come up for sale. That’s half the appeal – the tenants of these sprawling estates get to live in a place they could never buy.”

As Viscount Bathurst can attest, part of the reason for the uptick in country house rentals is down to the ballooning costs of running, heating and maintenance works. “Many of these houses are listed so any changes are complicated, expensive and have to meet all the regulations,” Mr Corbett says. “For a property worth £3m, we’re talking costs of at least £60,000 a year.”

Of course, landowners have long rented out properties on their estates, or opened up houses to the public for tours and weddings or for filming.

Lucy Hawkins, of the Strutt & Parker estate agency, says: “These assets are held for generations, producing good returns and helping to contribute towards the continuity of the estate and wider portfolio.”

Rupert Conant grew up in Bulwick Hall, an elegant limestone house in Northamptonshire set in 40 acres of 1953 until six months before he died,” says Mr Conant, a photographer, who lives with his family on another property on the estate.

“While the usual situation is that the estate owner lives in the big house, we are happy renting it out and being in a smaller property. Its popularity with tenants may be because of the difficulty in buying grand houses like this.”

For some people with country houses they are trying to sell, the slow sales market means they are letting them out while they wait to find a buyer, while others are making hay while the sun shines.

Emma Langlands, of buying agent Property Vision, says: “There is high demand for country houses among renters. Many people seeking to buy will first try renting in an area before committing to a purchase, or while they wait for a house to come up.”

This is particularly the case in buoyant markets such as the Cotswolds, where houses worth about £4m are now renting for up to £ 10,000 or £12,000 a month, according to Harry Gladwin, of buying agency The Buying Solution. “This is roughly double what they would have rented for before Covid,” he says. “Also, many large country houses were bought around the pandemic and owners haven’t spent as much time in them as they thought they might – and, crucially, perhaps didn’t quite realise the management, utility and staffing costs.”

Some wealthy tenants are renting while they await the outcome of the general election, according to Richard Winter, of the eponymous Surrey property search agency. “People are nervous about the potential result and impact on the housing market.”

Others rent because they don’t want to commit to a big-ticket house purchase at current mortgage rates.

Some country-house owners are opting to make their properties available for short-term lets, which are often more lucrative. However, while shortterm country rentals enjoyed a boom in the wake of the pandemic, the abolition of the generous furnished holiday lettings tax regime may make this option less attractive.

Gemma Maclaran, of the buying agency Middleton Advisors, says: “Some homeowners may opt for long-term rentals or consider selling up instead.”

Alexandra Goss