Massive potential squat in Daily Mail

[Zardoz]

Sorry folks, no longer an empty!

Wentworth Woodhouse, in Wentworth, South Yorkshire, the largest privately-owned house in Europe, is finally awaking from its slumber. Two houses of totally different architectural styles built by The First Marquess of Rockingham between 1725 & 1750, the west front of the house in the baroque style & the east front in the later palladian style.

After being inaccessible to most members of the general public for over 60 years this sleeping giant is finally opening up to the wide world.

http://www.wentworthwoodhouse.co.uk/

--- In Diggers350 at yahoogroups.com, "Tony Gosling" <tony at ...> wrote:
>
> THE HOUSE WITH 365 EMPTY ROOMS
> "a quarter of a million square feet"
> Feuds and fortunes: Robert Hardman discovers the family secrets behind the
> grand-looking Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire.
> 
> HOW I SEE IT by Robert Hardman
> Daily Mail - 24th February - 2007
> 
> Five front doors. A room for every day of the year. Mile after mile of
> corridors echoing with scandal. And no family's lived here for 28 years.
> Welcome to Britain's biggest (and emptiest) mansion.
> 
> YOU WOULDN'T want children playing hide and seek in . this place. They
> could starve to death - or grow up¬ - before someone finds them. It is the
> most jaw¬-droppingly enormous private house I have ever seen. No wonder
> Edwardian guests were issued with confetti to lay a trail from their
> rooms; without it, they might never have made it to bed.
> Mind you, 'house' is a woefully inadequate word to describe Wentworth
> Woodhouse, Britain's largest stately home. Even members of the Royal
> Family - and several have stayed here - would agree that this is, by any
> standards, a palace. In fact, it is twice as wide as Buckingham Palace,
> with a room for every day of the year and a quarter of a million square
> feet of floor.
> In their day, the Earls Fitzwilliam employed hundreds and entertained
> thousands here. For the past eight years, though, barely a soul has
> stepped through any of the five front doors. Sealed off, this 18th-century
> colossus near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, has been forgotten. Until now.
> A compelling new history of  Wentworth Woodhouse, its occupants, their
> fortunes and their scandals has suddenly unlocked awkward secrets, and
> cast a fresh spotlight on the house often described as 'unquestionably,
> the finest Georgian house in England'.
> While the story has all the makings of an epic screen drama, the attention
> will not be welcomed by all the descendants of the Fitzwilliam line, some
> of whom are still not on speak¬ing terms with one another. Nor will
> America's Kennedy clan wish to be reminded of the tragic consequences for
> John F. Kennedy's adored sister when she dallied with a Fitzwilliam.
> For the previous owner, a boom-and ¬bust Eighties entrepreneur, it will be
> a painful reminder of a collapsed business and a failed marriage. And for
> the present owners, a reclusive family of North London property
> developers, the publicity is as welcome as dry rot.
> The book has fascinating insights into the dynasty that once ruled this
> Yorkshire roost. It transpires that, thanks to a little aristocratic
> philander¬ing, there may be people in these parts unaware that they have
> noble blood.
> Yet, despite the fresh exposure of three 20th-century Fitzwilliam
> scan¬dals, I soon discover that most people round here really miss the old
> landlords.
> Tourists are not encouraged at the big house. However, they are certainly
> welcome in the yellow-stoned village of Wentworth, where the doors are
> still painted in Fitzwilliam green and the houses belong to a Fitzwilliam
> charitable trust.
> And they are welcome at the huge garden centre that has opened in the
> estate's old kitchen gardens. Visitors can even wander into the old bear
> pit.
> ASTONISHINGLY, a bear was still living there, by way of decoration and
> entertainment, at the start of the 20th century. Asked what he would like
> as a farewell present, the last bear-keeper chose the bear and retired in
> 1902 to a local almshouse, while the bear lived in his coal shed.
> The road that leads to the house is private - but there is also a public
> footpath so I decided to walk. A few abandoned modern buildings lurk in
> the trees, unlovely monuments to the teacher-training college that
> sprouted here after the war.
> Then, 200 yards down, to the right of the path, there is a massive
> Georgian facade that could be a stately home all on its own. This is
> merely the stable block. I walk another 200 yards, past the grave of the
> great 18th-century racehorse Whistlejacket. The treeline suddenly stops
> and there it is: a great pile of Georgian stone stretching symmetrically
> either side of a mas¬sive central section which, on its own, is larger
> than some parliaments I have seen.
> THE upper reaches are still stained black from the coal¬mining that once
> supported this place. The motto Mea Gloria Fides (Faith is my glory.
> [Check that. Ed.]) remains etched on the stonework and the only visible
> signs say 'private'.
> There isn't a single light visible in a single window. A solitary grey
> pick-up is parked outside what I can only describe as the south wing of
> the east wing. Clearly, someone somewhere is watching because, as we walk
> back to our car, the grey pick-up follows us and a man makes a note of the
> photographer's licence plate.
> Today, the house and some 30 acres around it belong to a company called
> St. Ledger Investments Ltd, which is run by Paul and Marcus Newbold,
> brothers and property developers from Highgate, North London. Their
> father, Clifford, an 80-year-old architect, bought the place for £1.5
> million in 1999 and reputedly lives here with a small team of restorers.
> 'I spoke to one worker who said it had taken two years to do up one room,'
> says Craig Homer, owner of the village shop. At that rate, the house
> should be finished by the next millennium.
> Like everyone I come across in these parts, Craig has never met the
> Newbolds. 'They keep themselves to themselves,' is the usual refrain. My
> own written enquiries yield an e-mail from Marcus Newbold that says: 'We
> are currently investigating a whole variety of potential uses which would
> be appropriate to this historic location.'
> Overall, the locals seem glad that someone is looking after the place.
> What surprises me is the pining for the ancien regime. Here we are, deep
> in Arthur Scargill country, just a few miles from the epicentre of the
> 1984 miners' strike, and everyone says that they would love to see the old
> toffs back at the big house.
> 'You won't hear a bad word about the Fitzwilliams round here. I never
> have,' says Martyn Johnson, a retired policeman from a long line of local
> miners. 'It's sad they've gone. That's our Chatsworth, our Blenheim, up
> the road there and it feels like it's been taken away.'
> We are in the bar of the George and Dragon (painted Fitzwilliam green),
> drinking Went worth Imperial from the village brewery (also Fitzwilliam
> green).
> Ernie Laister, 71, spent much of his life working as a joiner on the
> estate. 'I was very happy the day I got my job with the Fitzwilliams
> because that carried a lot of respect,' he says. 'The wages weren't great,
> but everyone got looked after.'
> That is why there is so much interest in Black Diamonds, the newly
> ¬published history of the Fitzwilliams, their house and their coal. 'They
> were our royalty,' says Ernie.
> The house is really three stately homes in one. Originally an Elizabethan
> property owned by the first Earl of Strafford, it passed to a cousin, the
> Marquess of Rocking¬ham. He began by adding a new house on the west side
> of the old one in the 1720s. But when some competitive cousins started
> building something even bigger nearby, he decided to beat them. Up went
> the vast east front.
> In 1782, the house passed to a sister who had married the 3rd Earl
> Fitzwilliam. Amazingly, the couple felt it wasn't quite big enough, so
> they added an entire storey to the east front. And that is the monster we
> see today.
> The apex of the family's fortunes was still to come. The house and estate
> straddled rich seams of coal which powered the British Empire, and the
> Fitzwilliams employed thousands in the family mines, which were famed for
> their safe working conditions [check this ;-) ed.].
> At the same time, though, there were seething tensions in the family which
> came to a head in 1902 with the death of the 6th Earl. He and his wife had
> produced eight sons and six daughters - but the eldest boy, Viscount
> Milton, suffered from epilepsy, then seen as a sign of lunacy.
> As the new book explains, the family were dismayed when he not only
> married but went on to produce a son, Billy, during self-imposed exile in
> the wilds of Canada. Milton died young, leaving Billy as the heir.
> When the time came, however, Billy's aunt, Lady.Alice, attempted a vicious
> coup, alleging that Billy was in fact a Canadian settler's child whom
> Milton had substituted in the place of a little girl.
> Whatever the truth (and one descendant is said to be planning a DNA test
> using a lock of Milton's hair), the coup failed. Lady Alice was expelled
> from Wentworth Woodhouse and Billy presided over a momentous epoch. The
> King and Queen, no less, came. to stay and toured one of Billy's mines.
> Industrial relations remained good at Wentworth. Before the General Strike
> of 1926, the miners' leaders came to see Billy to tell him that they did
> not want to strike. 'You must,' he told the gobsmacked union leaders, 'or
> you'll let the others down.'
> Fresh scandals were not far off. Billy had four daughters but just one son
> and heir, the beloved Peter. Spurning the local aristo. set, Peter was
> commendably chummy with the local lads and energetically so, it seems,
> with the lasses.
> Catherine Bailey, author of Black Diamonds, believes that Peter is linked
> to at least three unwanted pregnancies by local girls, who were quietly
> paid to disappear. One man, still alive, apparently has no idea of his
> noble blood.
> BILLY died in 1943 and everything passed to Peter, who proved himself a
> very gallant member of the SOE, the precursor to the SAS. He won the
> Distinguished Service Cross for his heroics with a fleet of motor torpedo
> boats. Married with a young daughter, the new 8th Earl was very popular
> with his workers.
> 'If! had my way, I'd have Wentworth back in Peter's day,' says retired
> mining engineer Charles Booth, 83, as we sit in the George and Dragon.
> 'Everyone liked Peter. He was a loveable rogue.'
> But the post-war Labour Govern¬ment wanted to teach the old order a
> lesson. It commandeered Peter's park for open-cast mining. As bulldozers
> tore up the ancient landscape, Peter tried to give the place to the
> National Trust - but was refused when the trust decided it couldn't afford
> the upkeep.
> A government plan for a massive hostel was averted only when Peter leased
> the east wing to the local council as a teacher-training college. But he
> still had his lands, his fortune and his wandering eye. In 1948, Peter
> left his young family at home and whisked his latest conquest off for a
> trip to the South of France. She was Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy, the
> beautiful sister of future President John F. Kennedy.
> In his desperation to get there, Peter ordered the pilot of the chartered
> plane to ignore a storm gathering over the Ardeche mountain range.
> Emerging from a cloud, the pilot was unable to avoid the ridge ahead of
> him. No-one survived [check possible conspiracy. ed].
> 'I remember our headmaster telling the school: "I have some terrible news
> for Wentworth,'" Ernie Laister recalls. 'Things went downhill from then
> on.'
> PETER'S widow and daughter inherited the contents of the house - including
> a Stubbs collection worth tens of millions today - and the title and land
> went to cousin Eric, a childless alcoholic. A celebrated court battle was
> then waged between his distant cousins, Toby and Tom Fitzwilliam - two
> brothers - to decide the succession.	~
> Toby was older and had an heir. Tom had no heir, but argued that their
> parents had not been married at the time of Toby's birth. The court found
> in favour of Tom and, after Eric's death, Tom took the title ¬only to die,
> heirless, in 1979. The Fitzwilliam title died with him.
> His last act was the ordering of an epic bonfire of 16 tons of family
> papers, which took a fortnight to burn.-Did-he want to cover up details
> about his own inheritance? To gloss over Billy's birth in the wilderness?
> Or just to tidy up years of clutter? We shall probably never know.
> The land - some 16,000 acres went to his stepchildren, the village went
> into a charitable trust and the house was sold to Wensley Haydon-¬Baillie,
> a colourful pharmaceuticals millionaire.
> 'He was fun,' says Martyn Johnson.
> 'He thought he was lord of the manor, but he invited us all to his
> wedding.' Haydon-Baillie's aristocratic fantasy crashed with his business
> in 1998. His debtors claimed the house and the Newbolds snapped it up for
> the cost of a smart London semi.
> There is no Earl now but there is still a huge network of Fitzwilliam
> cousins who hold a reunion every year. The 'Billy' branch recently tried
> to include the 'Toby' branch, but their offer was rebuffed. Some wounds,
> it seems, are still sore.
> A few cousins still administer charitable trusts that continue to help the
> locals. Every villager can apply for Fitzwilliam money to help fund their
> children through university. Every Wentworth pensioner gets a £35 voucher
> at Christmas.
> 'I remember Peter's wedding,' sighs Charles Booth. 'My sister, Mavis, gave
> them a bouquet. If only he'd never got on that plane. The village has
> never been the same since.'
> Black Diamonds: The Rise And Fall Of An English Dynasty, by Catherine
> Bailey is published on March 1 by Viking, priced £20.
>