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5:30PM GMT 02 Nov 2015
Many of the older guests – owners of some of the most beautiful and magnificent country houses in Britain – will well remember an exhibition held 40 years ago at the Victoria and Albert Museum. One of the most haunting features of The Destruction of the Country House 1875-1975 was the Hall of Destruction, photographs and illustrations of a thousand country houses that no longer existed, having fallen into disrepair or been demolished.
When the Chancellor removed the zero rate of VAT on listed building repairs three years ago, maintenance bills for old buildings went up by 20%. Photo: Andrew Fox
As a young architectural historian, Marcus Binney – who will give tonight’s keynote speech, marking 10 years of the Country Houses Foundation – was one of the organisers of the iconic VA exhibition, which helped change the public mood in favour of stricter heritage protection measures. It became much more difficult for owners to simply knock down a Tudor wing – or an entire house – if they couldn’t afford the upkeep.
The government of the day introduced grants and tax measures that made more funds available for critical repairs to help save hundreds of great country houses that were close to ruin following decades of post-war neglect as a result of death duties, crippling high taxation and the collapse of rural land values.
But how is the English country house actually doing today? Well, I don’t think for a moment that Binney is going to give much comfort tonight. I speak as the owner of an Elizabethan house, one that just about washes its face by being open to the public for tours and teas, when I say that we are under as great a threat today as we were back then.
Today, that threat is not so much from diminishing estate income and death duties, although these remain problematic. Our country houses – one of our greatest social and cultural exports – are being destroyed before our eyes because the Government fails to understand the importance of “historic setting” – that is, preserving the grounds in which they sit. If it did, I for one wouldn’t be having to defend my hamlet from greedy eco-developers.
William Cash and his wife Laura face the destruction of their Grade-1 listed house and its surroundings. Photo: Andrew Fox
My wife Laura and I face the destruction not of our English country house – it’s Grade-I listed – but of its surroundings. Yesterday, a minibus containing a dozen or so Shropshire Council planning committee members disembarked by our gates to assess the harm that could be done to Upton Cressett by the erection nearby of 40,000 solar panels.
We live in one of the most heavily protected heritage sites in the Midlands, yet a planning officer has recommended approval of a giant industrial solar park. Our hall and gardens, Norman church and gatehouse (described by Sir Simon Jenkins as an “Elizabethan gem”) are part of an ancient and unspoilt setting that, in 1951, Sir John Betjeman called a “remote and beautiful place set in the loneliest of valleys… best approached by horse, bicycle or by foot to appreciate the landscape”.
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