The Littlecote Curate's Egg
Sarah Jane Checkland visits a 15th-century Wiltshire Manor House.
When millionaire businessman Peter de Savary opens Littlecote Manor House up to the public at Easter, visitors may be in for a series of multiple, sometimes inaccurate time-warps, ending up in the crude reality of twentieth-century tourism.
De Savary bought the late fifteenth-century Wiltshire house, replete with its eighty-eight acres and unique collection of Civil War armour, for himself and his wife-to-be last year, and then spent some months trying to sell the place after the engagement fell through. During this time, he encountered the passion of the British heritage lobby, which complained vociferously that the ambience of the house was shortly to be destroyed if the armour was dispersed. Apparently swayed by all this, De Savary decided to keep the estate after all, and turn it into a historical theme park, with all members of staff in costume.
De Savary bought the late fifteenth-century Wiltshire house, replete with its eighty-eight acres and unique collection of Civil War armour, for himself and his wife-to-be last year, and then spent some months trying to sell the place after the engagement fell through. During this time, he encountered the passion of the British heritage lobby, which complained vociferously that the ambience of the house was shortly to be destroyed if the armour was dispersed. Apparently swayed by all this, De Savary decided to keep the estate after all, and turn it into a historical theme park, with all members of staff in costume.
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