News - Coal body facing £100m claim for damage (Wentworth Woodhouse)

COAL Authority bosses will face a legal claim for more than £100m after the owners of one of Yorkshire’s most neglected stately homes won the first stage in a court battle for compensation.

The Newbold family, led by octogenarian architect Clifford Newbold, bought Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, a decade ago for £1.5m and have plans to bring the empty building back to life.

But in order to make the plan work, Mr Newbold and his sons Paul, Marcus and Giles, must prove mining work carried out both beneath and around the house have led to its current “dilapidated state”.

Yesterday in the High Court, the Coal Authority, which is responsible for investigating and paying out in subsidence claims, applied to have the case struck out over “invalid” paperwork.

But a judge found in favour of the Newbolds, paving the way for them to make their case and potentially win hundreds of millions of pounds to turn the house into a hotel, museum, tourist attraction and business centre.

The Grade-I listed stately home was built by the Earls Fitzwilliam in the 1700s.

It has the longest facade in Europe, is reputed to have 365 rooms and covers an enormous area of over 2.5 acres.

It is former seat of the Second Marquess of Rockingham, who was twice Prime Minister, and stands above one of Britain’s richest coal seams, which supplied the profits needed to keep the estate afloat.

The Newbold brothers now claim that the mineshafts which once provided the cash to run the house could be its undoing, with the building sinking in several places, and large cracks appearing in walls and ceilings.

Earlier this year, Giles Newbold gave the Yorkshire Post access to the stunning mansion and told how he and his family had already spent millions of pounds on restoring the areas where they currently live,

The High Court heard that the house was occupied by the military during the Second World War, and was used by Rotherham Council as a teacher training college.

It was later abandoned by the local authority and subsequently fell into disrepair until the Newbold family read about its plight in a newspaper and decided to launch their plans.

The court heard that the brothers are seeking compensation “likely to be in excess of £100m” from the Coal Authority, claiming mining works carried out in the area from the 19th Century until about 30 years ago have caused “extensive subsidence damage” over the past decade.

However, the authority is disputing the brothers’ claims and, at the Upper Tribunal, attempted to deliver a knock-out blow by arguing that “damage notices” issued against it in February 2007 and August 2009 were invalid.

Nicholas Baatz QC, for the Coal Authority, claimed the notices were not worth the paper they were written on because they were issued in the name of Paul Newbold alone, rather than by all three brothers who have been freehold owners of the stately home since 2005.

The barrister also claimed the notices failed to give “prescribed particulars” demanded by the strict terms of the Coal Mining Subsidence Act 1991.

However, ruling in favour of the Newbold brothers, tribunal judge, George Bartlett QC, said: “I conclude that the authority’s contention that the notices were invalid must fail...that is sufficient to dispose of the authority’s case”.

The Newbold’s case will now go ahead for a full hearing later this year, at which it will be up to the brothers to prove that the bill for “remedial works” needed to restore Wentworth Woodhouse to its former glory can be laid at the door of the Coal Authority.

Yesterday Giles Newbold said he and his family welcomed the court’s decision and added that they hoped it would lead to a brighter future for the house and its estate.

He added: “We are pleased that we are able to take our case further so that we can secure the regeneration and long term future of this magnificent part of the nation’s heritage.”

From: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/at-a-glance/main-section/coal_body_facing_100m_claim_for_damage_1_4291634

News - Court fight over a stately treasure (Wentworth Woodhouse)

Clifford Newbold, owner of Wentworth Woodhouse, in the marble hall. Picture by Chris Lawton

ONE Sunday more than a decade ago, retired architect Clifford Newbold and his son Giles embarked on a project to give new life to one of Yorkshire’s most neglected stately homes after reading about its plight in a newspaper.

Mr Newbold, who had spent much of his life working in London, was involved in the design of the capital’s iconic Millbank Tower. But his new project, which he took on in his mid-70s, would prove even more challenging.

The father-and-son team spent 10 years labouring to bring Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, back into use, and their plans for a museum, hotel, spa and conference centre are now ready to begin.

But no work will start until the outcome of a court case against the Coal Authority is complete, because it is claimed that the stunning building, built by the Earls Fitzwilliam in the 1700s, is breaking up because of subsidence.

The irony of the situation is that the Grade I-listed house itself was built using the profits made from coal, with thousands of tonnes still lying in seams hundreds of metres below the estate.

Wentworth Woodhouse’s history is defined by its troubled relationship with the fossil fuel, with the last Earl to live there forced to watch as a 1940s Labour government ripped up his garden for opencast mining.

As Giles Newbold talks about that episode, in which Fuel Minister Manny Shinwell laid waste to the estate, there is real anger in his voice, and he describes what happened as vandalism.

For both men, the vision is to move the house away from its past and build a new future, based on more illustrious stories of its place at the centre of a thriving community.

Showing pictures taken by the RAF of the opencast devastation, Giles Newbold, a 36-year-old building surveyor, said: “They actually used explosives and blew up the bedrock within a few metres of the walls of the house.

“The holes were up to 40m deep. One area had a planted woodland which contained every species of tree found in northern Europe. It was just felled and the ground dug for coal. We want to restore that.

“We are in a position where we could start in six months, but we just need to get the case with the Coal Authority settled.”

Many of the house’s contents, commissioned and built up by successive Earls, were taken by the Government in lieu of death duties when the last Earl died.

Many family portraits are now held by the National Portrait Gallery, while other artworks and statues from the house are scattered around the globe.

A painting by George Stubbs of famous estate racehorse Whistlejacket was commissioned in the 1760s for one of the rooms, but is now in the National Gallery. A facsimile currently hangs in the Whistlejacket Room.

Mr Newbold junior said: “We want to bring those works of art back.

“Many of these pieces were commissioned for Yorkshire and they should be here to be enjoyed by the people of Yorkshire.”

When the Newbolds bought the house for £1.5m it was “stripped clean” and Mr Newbold senior said an “enormous sum” had already been spent tracking down simple items.

One fire grate from the house was found in a London saleroom, while the bell board, which told servants where to go in the house, was discovered in Dublin.

Despite what has happened, the stunning interiors of Wentworth Woodhouse have stood their many tests, and the splendid state rooms, including the Pillared Hall which contains empty plinths where statues once stood, will form the museum.

Meanwhile, the Newbolds have already started welcoming some visitors to the house, including students both past and present,

Mr Newbold senior, 85, said: “There has been a great deal of interest from architecture students at Sheffield University.

“For them it is a fantastic opportunity because this house hasn’t had a lot of reports written on it and hasn’t been extensively studied in the way that others around the country have.

“We also recently hosted a group who were here when it was a training college for teachers.

“They reverted to being girls again and started looking for the rooms they remembered. We want to welcome more people and for this place to be part of the community as it once was.”

A High Court ruling on the Coal Authority case is expected in the next few weeks.

From: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/at-a-glance/main-section/court_fight_over_a_stately_treasure_1_4110335

News - Mansion project opens up a vista of Yorkshire (Wentworth)

At MORE than 120ft in the air, a breathtaking panorama of Yorkshire countryside, taking in rolling fields, rural villages, a country house and one of England’s biggest cities, stretches out for as far as the eye can see.

At one time, the view would have been seen from the top of a folly called Keppel’s Column, but because it has fallen into disrepair, a cherry-picker crane was required yesterday to recreate the impressive vista.

The machine was hired by Clifford Newbold, who owns nearby Wentworth Woodhouse, and his son Giles as part of their vision to restore and revive the house and park which was originally the home of the Fitzwilliam family.

The column, which is now the responsibility of Rotherham Council, once formed part of the estate, and Giles Newbold said it offered a “unique viewpoint” from which to document the landscape and understand how Wentworth was designed.

Mr Newbold and his father bought the crumbling house and parkland for just £1.5m in 1999, but have since spent tens of millions of pound researching its history and carrying out structural and engineering surveys to ascertain its condition.

The huge mansion, which is said to have 365 rooms, one for every day of the year, has had a chequered history since the Fitzwilliam family left in the 1950s, the National Coal Board opencasting the site for several years.

At present, the Newbold family are making a claim against the Coal Authority, which is now responsible for the after-effects of mining, and are arguing that both the opencast operations, and deep mining have affected the house.

Mr Newbold said the family had worked tirelessly in the last 12 years on the coal claim and on other plans to try and save Wentworth Woodhouse from complete dereliction, but added that it had required much work behind the scenes.

Now they have the support of English Heritage, and blueprints are being drawn up which could see the Grade-I listed house and its equally impressive stables and other buildings turned to a new modern use as offices and a luxury hotel.

Mr Newbold, a 36-year-old building surveyor said he, his 85-year-old father, an eminent London architect before his retirement, and his two brothers, were “absolutely committed” to ensuring that the estate had a “sustainable future”.

He added: “Over the last 10 years we have done a lot of research into the history of the estate but one thing we could not find were any pictures of it from the top of Keppel’s Column. So we hired the cherry-picker to see the view.

“Looking at the house and park from this angle allows us to see what survives of the original landscape and how the stripping out of the estate by the coal board, which went within a few feet of the house and 1,000 ft down, affected it.

“Being able to document the landscape will also help us to make an argument for the parkland and make sure it is protected in the same way as it is at country houses like Chatsworth and Castle Howard.

“There has been a school of thought that Wentworth isn’t worth saving, and charities like the National Trust would never have taken it on. But my father saw that it was worth saving and if it was lost it would be lost forever.

“The rest of the world absolutely craves our heritage and there is now a huge amount of interest in Wentworth Woodhouse, and we aim to ensure that it survives for centuries to come.”

The proposal for the mansion house is to create a combination of publicly accessible restored museum to the central and grandest rooms, as well as a 70 suite luxury hotel and spa.

A Rotherham Council spokesman said yesterday morning’s event had been carried out in partnership with the Newbold family and allowed the authority’s officers to carry out a visual survey of Keppel’s Column and check its condition.

The spokesman said: “The survey was part of the authority’s ongoing care and maintenance of a number of heritage sites across the borough. It was a visual inspection and the findings will be reported back to members in due course.

“The operation also allowed the Mayor and Mayoress of Rotherham, Shaun and Lisa Wright, to take in some of the best views across Rotherham.”

From: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/around-yorkshire/local-stories/mansion_project_opens_up_a_vista_of_yorkshire_1_3714583

News - 1,500 jobs in £200m plans to open ‘Black Diamonds’ stately home (Wentworth)

MORE than 1,500 new jobs are part of a £200 million museum, hotel and business centre plan to transform Wentworth Woodhouse - opening the ‘Black Diamonds’ stately home to the public, The Star can reveal.

Owners hope the massive development and detailed restoration of the 18th century house will be completed in time for a 2015 opening.

And they reckon the plans will turn the Grade I listed property - currently one of the biggest private residencies in Europe - into the leading attraction of its kind anywhere in the world.

They estimate it will attract 150,000 visitors each year to see it in South Yorkshire.

Wentworth Woodhouse, on the Rotherham-Barnsley border - just a short drive north of Sheffield - is the former home of the Fitzwilliam coal-mining family dynasty, shrouded in secrecy for years and the subject of Catherine Bailey’s best selling book, Black Diamonds.

The stunning private family home, which is twice the width of Buckingham Palace, with 1,000 windows, 365 rooms and had stabling for 100 horses, can only be viewed by the public at a distance from a right of way through Wentworth Park.

But the The Star was given exclusive access on a guided tour inside the home by the existing owners, who outlined their plans ahead of Dan Cruickshank’s look at the property in his BBC2 TV series Country Houses Revealed, on Tuesday, May 31, at 9pm.

VIDEO: Press the play button to watch our special video report, including a chat with the owner and a tour of the magnificent home.

YOUTUBE: You can also watch on YouTube, where it can be played on the iPhone and iPad - click on the External Link in the column on the right.

Clifford Newbold, the 85-year-old London architect who bought the building in 1999 and is overseeing the development, said: “This is a magnificent house. We want to return it to its former glory, protect it for the future, and place it once again at the heart of this community.”

The property has fallen into considerable structural disrepair, thought to be because of huge mine shafts dug all around it between 1943 and 1979.

But the new plans - already given informal backing by both English Heritage and Rotherham Council - would see the central house completely restored in all its original detail and opened up as a museum. One part of the huge east wing would be transformed into a 70-bed hotel, with the remainder set to become a spa.

The huge stable block will be converted into office space,

exhibition rooms and a conference venue.

From http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/exclusive_1_500_jobs_in_200m_plans_to_open_black_diamonds_stately_home_video_1_3404410

 

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