Witchhunt!
Probe at Scots aristocrat’s family home as skull and fake blood dumped on estate manager’s car ... and a ‘cursed’ broomstick left at cottage door
AS the ancestral seat of one of Scotland’s most colourful aristocratic families, it has witnessed more than its fair share of scandals and dramas over the centuries.
Yet never before has the magnificent home of the Glenconner dynasty witnessed such a gruesome act of vandalism.
For a car belonging to the estate manager has been smeared with a revolting mixture of sheep manure and fake blood.
Adding to the grisly scene, the vehicle was then topped with a ram’s skull.
Separately, the doorway of a cottage on the estate was blocked by a home-made broomstick in what was thought to be a witch’s curse.
And, appropriately enough, the furious estate manager has launched what residents are calling a ‘witchhunt’ as he tries to discover who is responsible for covering his car in filth. The bizarre incidents are the
‘Bill Staempfli took it really badly. He was incandescent’
latest embodiment of the rapidly deteriorating relationship between the Tennant family, owners of the estate, and the tenants who rent cottages in the grounds.
The 24-bedroom Glen House, complete with fairytale turrets and surrounded by some 3,500 acres of wooodland, was built in Peeblesshire in the 19th Century for the Tennants, who were wealthy industrialists.
The estate is owned by Euan Tennant, son of the late Henry and Tessa Tennant. However, it is managed by his stepfather Bill Staempfli, an American businessman who was Tessa’s second husband.
Last year, The Scottish Mail on Sunday revealed that an unflattering oil painting had been left in the grounds, lampooning Mr Staempfli as Wee Wullie Havershame, a reference to the tragic figure Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.
While the anonymous artwork was said to have angered Mr Staempfli, the latest incident has apparently left him ‘incandescent with rage’.
The estate manager discovered his dark blue electric BMW covered in filth one morning last month. It was smeared with sheep manure, copious amounts of what appeared to be tomato ketchup and topped off with the skull.
The charging point for the car is in the stables’ courtyard, out of sight of the main house.
Mr Staempfli reacted by circulating angry messages and photographs of the car to friends and local politicians.
Images were soon also circulated among tenants living in the various rented properties on the estate. Although nobody has confessed to fouling the car, there is no shortage of potential suspects – since at least four tenants have left the estate in the past two months, while others remain at loggerheads with Mr Staempfli over his management of the estate.
One insider said: ‘He was incandescent. He took it really badly.
‘Much as he did with the painting, he launched an immediate witchhunt. But no one’s owning up.
‘We don’t know who did it but a lot of the residents have a bad relationship with him and are finding his rage rather funny.’
One former tenant said: ‘His style is autocratic. It didn’t matter how many voices disagreed with him, it had to be done his way.’
Mr Staempfli refused to discuss the matter with The Scottish Mail on Sunday.
The New York architect married the late Tessa Tennant in 2007 and has managed the Glen for her son, Euan, since her death from ovarian cancer in July 2018.
Insiders say that there have been many unwanted changes since her death, with many considering their future on top of the recent departures.
One of the tenants who departed last month left a hand-made witch’s broomstick in the doorway.
Folklore has it that this was a way of protecting a home while it was empty, and that whoever removed the broomstick and entered would be cursed.
Andrew Brown, tenant of the cottage opposite the property where the broomstick was left, said: ‘I came back from a short trip to Italy to find my neighbours gone and the broomstick in place.
‘It had clearly been there several days and it was certainly more than a week before anyone dared to lift the broomstick and enter.’
Glen Estate was inherited by Colin Tennant, the third Baron Glenconner, in the mid-20th Century. The flamboyant lord spent most of his time on the Caribbean island of Mustique, where he threw decadent parties for the great and the good, including the Queen’s sister, the late Princess Margaret.
His wife, Lady Anne Glenconner, became the princess’s closest friend and her lady-in-waiting.
The princess was also a frequent visitor to Glen House, where she met her companion for eight years, Roddy Llewellyn.
‘Residents are finding his rage rather funny’