By
Natalie Clarke
Last updated at 1:34 AM on 25th October 2011
Rise Hall stood empty and forlorn, its once imperious Ionic columns crumbling, its slate roof under threat of collapse.
The 97-room mansion, one of the East Riding’s finest stately homes, was a restoration project no one was brave enough to take on.
But then Sarah Beeny, television’s ubiquitous property expert, came across the house in East Yorkshire — and it was love at first sight. She and her husband, artist Graham Swift, bought it for just £435,000 and set about restoring the country pile.
Last year, ten years on, 39-year-old Miss Beeny opened its doors to the public in a television programme about the project.
Television guru: Sarah Beeny and Rise Hall, but where did it all go wrong?
Among the viewers was Matthew Grove, the area’s Conservative ward councillor, who lives two miles away. He watched with astonishment as Sarah showed off the sweeping staircase, the cornicing, delicate paintwork and bedroom panelling.
Where, he thought, was the paperwork seeking planning permission for alterations to this Grade II* listed building?
A year later, Miss Beeny is embroiled in an extraordinary row with Mr Grove and council bureaucrats.
She stands accused of considering herself ‘above the law’ because of her celebrity status and failing to follow her own expert advice.
Miss Beeny vigorously denies any wrongdoing and accuses Mr Grove of creating ‘a storm in a teacup’ for political gain.
But her plans for the house are in disarray. She had hoped to use it as a wedding venue to help pay its keep and had obtained a wedding licence. Now, having held just one ceremony, she has been barred by the local council from holding any more because of fire safety issues.
Grand: One of its impressive bedrooms with copper bath
‘When you take on a stately home like Rise Hall, you are not really its owner, you are merely its custodian,’ says Mr Grove. ‘Planning rules and regulations are in place so that the public can have a stake in the property’s restoration. No one is above the law and that includes those who are in a position of celebrity.’
But Miss Beeny told me: ‘We had a dream to bring this beautiful house alive again, to regenerate the area. But now our time and money is spent filling in forms.
‘I’ve done something to annoy the council. I suppose it’s something to do with the fact that I’m on television. I’m under no illusions — this is personal.’
So has the likeable property guru really broken her own rules? Miss Beeny and her husband bought Rise Hall in 2000, before she became well-known as the presenter of such Channel 4 programmes as Property Ladder and Help! My House is Falling Down. The couple married in 2003 and have four young sons.
Impressive: Rise Hall’s main staircase and hall
Because of her work commitments, the family based themselves in London. Rise Hall would be a ‘holiday home’, albeit one that is 40,000sq ft, with 33 bedrooms and 25 bathrooms.
The house was built around 1820 for the aristocratic Bethells. In World War II it was a searchlight headquarters, and then until 1990 it was a Catholic boarding school.
It stood empty for several years and by the time Miss Beeny and Mr Swift bought it from Hugh Bethell in 2000 it was severely dilapidated. There was dry rot, wet rot, woodworm and a dangerous roof. The couple tackled each room, doing much of the work themselves.
Meanwhile, Miss Beeny’s television career took off. She also set up a private property buying and selling service, Tepilo, and a dating website, My Single Friend, with a girlfriend, which has proved hugely successful and whose accounts show it made a £300,000 profit this year.
Her husband was also enjoying success as an artist, so there was money coming in. But Rise Hall needed a great deal of it — £500,000, Miss Beeny revealed in an interview last year. The couple were optimistic, however, that the wedding venue business would help.
Then in July last year Miss Beeny’s show about Rise Hall, Beeny’s Restoration Nightmare, aired on Channel 4 — and that’s when the problems began. Mr Grove says: ‘Here was this Grade II* listed property completely overhauled and I had no idea it had been happening.
‘The building’s last legal use had been as a school and now it was a wedding venue and, in effect, a hotel or guest house, because 27 bedrooms were being let out to wedding guests and there was no consent for that.
‘Miss Beeny had even forgotten to apply for permission to use the house as a domestic dwelling. The Welsh slate used for the roof had been replaced with European slate and she had erected some gate posts without any permission.’
Library: The stately home’s luxury decor helps it be rented out as a special wedding venue
What really concerned him, he adds, was there was no fire escape.
Miss Beeny has since been issued with a Fire Improvements Notice from Humberside Fire and Rescue Service, requiring her to meet regulations. ‘I don’t know why Miss Beeny regards public safety as a storm in a teacup,’ says Mr Grove.
The row coincides with the airing of the second series of Miss Beeny’s programme about Rise Hall, which makes Mr Grove ask: ‘Could it be that an element of argument and tension makes for a more interesting television show?’
But Miss Beeny insists all this arguing is the last thing she needs. In October last year, she made a retrospective application for planning permission for the gateposts, which has yet to be granted.
In April, she applied for Listed Building Consent to create a larder. The following month, she applied belatedly for a Certificate of Lawful Development for continued use of Rise Hall as a single dwelling house and this was approved.
The council says building regulation issues are outstanding.
But Miss Beeny says: ‘Rise Hall didn’t have permission to be a school; it has always been listed as a domestic dwelling so we didn’t think we needed to make a new application. The tiling of the roof was begun by the previous owner with the written agreement of the council’s conservation officer.
‘As for the gate and gateposts, I put my hands up. I didn’t realise we would need planning permission.
‘This Matthew Grove has been jiggling up the council and now we’re wasting an enormous amount of time and public money on petty bureaucracy. He has got it into his head that we are using Rise Hall as a hotel, but we are not. Anyone with a private residence is able to apply for a wedding licence.’
She adds: ‘The building needed someone to love it. But it’s reached the point where perhaps Graham and I are no longer the right custodians.’
Former owner Hugh Bethell supports the restoration work overall, but believes Miss Beeny may have overlooked seeking planning permission as she rushed to meet TV production deadlines.
‘The programme meant she would get a lot of stuff paid for, such as the kitchen from BQ, and specialist builders did the windows,’ he says.
‘They were prepared to do it because they would get the advertising. It had to be done quickly to meet filming demands and then she went for retrospective approval.
‘I think the councillors are irritated because she has used her fame to get away with it, but looking at the bigger picture there has got to be a bit of compromise. It’s not as if she’s ruined the building.’
Most of the villagers in nearby Rise appear supportive of Miss Beeny’s efforts. Chartered surveyor Lucy Whitehead, 28, says: ‘If Sarah is trying to get a wedding business going it is all for the good of the village.’
But this week, East Riding of Yorkshire Council issued this terse statement: ‘As a self-proclaimed expert on property renovation, Ms Beeny should have been well aware that the restoration of the Grade II* Listed Building and its conversion to a wedding and events venue would require these consents.’
Miss Beeny does not know what the future holds and says it’s quite possible she will try to sell Rise Hall. But there is still a great deal of renovation work to be done.
One thing is for sure though, Beeny’s Restoration Nightmare certainly lived up to its name.
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Good luck to you Sarah and Husband, your Tepilo private homeselling website is a remarkable achievment on it’s own, if only more people knew about how easy it is to the beat the agents and pay no selling fee’s to anyone, i hope you can work this little local difficulty out soon, i love your out of the box thinking!.
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Another example of bureaucracy gone mad. If the council cared that much about the building, why didn’t they buy it and do it up? They were quite happy to let it go to rack and ruin. Seems to me that the little council man is a teeny bit jealous?
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“It stood empty for several years and by the time Miss Beeny and Mr Swift bought it from Hugh Bethell in 2000 it was severely dilapidated. There was dry rot, wet rot, woodworm and a dangerous roof.”
Daft council would rather see a building go to ruin rather than restored. Of course Beeny should not exploit her celebrity status and should have known better than to ride roughshod over planning regulations. But that said the building is in a much better condition than if it had been left to Gove and his councillors and their “public ownership”. As for the wedding venue the building is not going to pay for itself left empty and rot away.
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I thinnk the councils have too much power. Soon no one will take on Grade II listed buildings and they’ll simply rot away. What a shame that would be. It should be mroe give and take. I think she should be commended for taking on such a huge project.
Council’s get with it. Stop being the problem causers and work for solutions that are FAIR.
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Just goes to prove that council employes are the same the world over. Jumped up petty beauracrats ! The lady of the house was trying to improve the uninhabitable building providing potential jobs for the local folk, and what has the council done, nothing but stop any hope of development of the locals income. Maybe she should have had a fire sale after the house mysteriously burnt down, then put up some neo georgian monstrositys made from foam and plastic like they do in Australia. She could have then sold them for a profit, as they are on land that was once part of the original estate. Let the council heritage person rot in jail as he deserves to be there for being a fool!
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I don’t see why someone would need permission to work on their own home. These laws are out dated and pathetic.
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