Historic manors now without peers
Benjamin Disraeli had Hughenden Manor, Ferdinand de Rothschild had Waddesdon Manor, both in Buckinghamshire and Philip Sassoon had Port Lympne in Kent. These houses are relics of an age when the British Jewish community started to join the ever-evolving British aristocracy. Waddesdon Manor is the only surviving Rothschild house with its collections and interiors intact.
So where does the knight or peer of tomorrow go to buy a suitable property? One place is the Game Fair, from today until Sunday at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. A celebration of hunting, shooting and fishing, it is also a magnet for estate agents, including Savills and Carter Jonas. They and more like them will be showing their wares in a vast tented village of stands and stalls attracting 100,000 people over the three days. Like Glastonbury — but with less music and more labradors.
At Savills’ stand, you can bid for Britain’s most expensive estate ever publicly marketed. Once home to the Aga Khan’s mother, Hackwood Park in Hampshire is for sale at a rumoured guide price of £65 million. Built in 1680, it is more than 50 times the size of the average family home. Savills also has Benham Park near Newbury in Berkshire on its books for a guide price of £26 million. The 28,000 sq ft stately home stands in 130 acres and has planning consent for an extra 110,000 sq ft.
For a more sensible £2.1 million, Carter Jonas is offering a house in Royston, Hertfordshire, dating back to the days of Waddesdon. Overlooking grounds of 13.75 acres, it has nearly 5,000 sq ft of space indoors and far-reaching views across rolling countryside.
There are nearly 9,000 sq ft on offer at Langcliffe Hall in North Yorkshire, available from Carter Jonas at an even more manageable guide price of £1.5 million. It is a grade II listed Jacobean hall with parkland and gardens.
But are the days of the big house over? Modern Jewish peers tend to shun the statement house. Lady Howard describes her and Lord Howard’s home in Folkestone as “a bit of a dog from the outside”. She likes it, she says in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, because it was “built by a colourist and has the most wonderful big windows with breathtaking views over Romney Marsh”. Today’s family mansions are more likely to be in north London, EDITED BY CHARLIE JACOBY built especially for the owners by a company such as Fusion Residential. Their owners will probably also have a larger house in continental Europe or the Caribbean. Happily, you can buy those at the Game Fair, too.
However, also at the Game Fair is a wealth-management specialist, Seven Investment Management (7IM), which advises you not to buy property at all this year but to rent instead.
Justin Urquhart Stewart, 7IM’s cofounder and head of corporate development, says barriers to residential property investment are currently too great to make buying a sensible option. He would like to see reform or abolition of stamp duty and a change in the law to persuade buyers of family homes to take long leases instead of freeholds. He also wants lenders or the government to show the value of a property investment alongside the value of other long-term savings — “and an end to this wretched drug of a fixation to buy. For heaven’s sake, your home is not a castle. Anyway, why would you want [a big country house]? It costs a fortune to heat, has dreadful council tax I expect and the moat probably has breeding mosquitoes.”
Charlie Jacoby is running the Game Fair Theatre at the heart of the show. thegamefair.org