Buy the home of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester? No, not THAT duke, the present one….!

Yes, of course I’ve heard of the present Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. Funnily enough I seem to recall a past Richard, Duke of Gloucester too. However, I hadn’t heard of Barnwell Manor, which has until recently been the home of the present duke and duchess.  It’s in Northamptonshire, half a mile north of the village from which it takes its name, and separated from the town of Oundle by the River Nene.

According to this article “….The rambling stone manor house at the heart of the property was built, according to its listing, for the Montagu family in the late 16th or early 17th century and altered or extended in the mid 18th century, late 18th/early 19th century and late 19th/early 20th century, with remodelling by Sir Albert Richardson in 1938. That work in the 1930s was prompted by the late Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, who commissioned the Richardson — a president of the Royal Academy and the founder of the Georgian Group — to renovate the manor….”

Good heavens, that is a patchwork quilt par excellence. And externally very beautiful. Most people would agree about the inside as well but it isn’t what appeals to me. Far too ornate. But that probably makes me a pleb.

However (a BIG however) in the ground there is a genuine castle ruin. No eighteenth-century ruin this, because Barnwell Castle predates the main house and was actually built illegally in 1266 by one Berenger le Moyne. He was found out, however, and had to hand it over to the abbots of Ramsey, who being the good God-fearing folk they were, grabbed it eagerly and held on until the Dissolution. You can read more about the castle here.

Today it will set you back £4.75 million to be king of this castle, because you have to buy the manor house to acquire it. And it is on the English Heritage At Risk register, with means that doing anything illegal will be a risky business! So you can forget all wild notions of dismantling the house to rebuild the castle! 🙄

PS: As a matter of interest, Hello! Magazine has also written of Barnwell Manor. You can read the article here.