Newby Hall When we meet, Richard and Lucinda Compton have just finished compiling their annual list of jobs to do around the house. It’s something couples do up and down the country, but given their home is Newby Hall, near Ripon, the list is not only long, but completing it is going to be expensive. Very expensive. “Top of this year’s list is to fix the crumbling masonry,” says Richard, who is also president of the Historic Houses Association. “There tends to be 300 plus jobs on there every year, which range from giving a window or door frame a quick lick of paint to major structural work. Whenever I walk round the property I always carry a pencil and bit of paper to note down work that needs doing. I never fail to spot something.” Even changing a lightbulb at Newby can cost a fortune, but the Comptons are not alone. According to the HHA, the country’s 1,500 privately owned estates, castles and gardens currently have a repairs backlog totalling some £390m. “Maintaining a property like this is a bit like painting the Forth Road Bridge,” adds Richard. “The work is never done. We are lucky in that
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we can call on a fantastic team of craftsmen, but they are getting older and there doesn’t seem to be anyone waiting in the wings to replace them. Lord only knows what will happen in ten or twenty years time when we need some 18th century plasterwork repairing.” When Richard inherited the estate in 1997 following the death of his father Robin, he and Lucinda were living in London with their three young children. Orlando, Ludo and Sasha were then aged between seven and thirteen and while the couple always knew that one day they would have to head north to begin another chapter of their lives at Richard’s childhood home, it didn’t make the upheaval any easier. “We had a great life in London, great careers and we had to give all that up,” says Lucinda, who is trained in furniture restoration and conservation while Richard worked in magazine publishing. “It was also hard for the children. They might have had the bonus of an ice cream kiosk in their front garden, but Newby was a world away from everything they knew. “Thankfully they are incredibly resilient and they did adapt to our new life and so did
Discover more The Newby Hall Miniature Railway is a delightful ride which runs along the River Ure with fantastic views of the gardens. The railway has carried over a million passengers since it started running.
Left to right: The stunning Newby Hall & Gardens. Richard and Lucinda Compton relax in the house kitchen. The Statue Room. The grounds from above.
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