Lord Mt Edgcumbe to come home

Press, 24 May 1985, Page 2

Lord Mt Edgcumbe to come home

London correspondent

Barely two years after he inherited a splendid estate iced with a castle in Cornwall, New Zealand-born Lord Mount Edg cumbe is saving up to go home and buy a farm. “I was a damn sight happier and had a damn sight more peace of mind in New Zealand than I have had here. And the climate is a lot better for sure,” he said yesterday. “I miss New Zealand too much.”

There has been no happy ending for the Earl, aged 45, and his wife, Lady Joan, after their highly publicised romances with other people last year. Lady Joan moved back to Lord Mount Edg cumbe’s castle — and still lives there — but there has been no reconciliation. The Earl said he was still friends with the local barmaid with whom he was linked. He might take her back to New Zealand to live with him — “depending on circumstances at the time.” “I always said I would go

back to New Zealand when I had got this show on the road,” he said. “I want to buy a small property. Basically I am a New Zealander. I love my country.” He hoped he could buy a farm somewhere in Bay of Plenty where, as plain Bob Edg cumbe, he managed a Lands and Survey Department block. It would not be for 18 months or so because of the finance needed.

He said he had always known that life in England on a big property bedevilled by death duties would not be “a bed of roses.”

“I thought it would be like this. I knew it would be a hard row to hoe,” he said. “I knew I would be a bit better off in monetary terms but living in a big house never made sure that anyone was happy. “It is hard work keeping an estate like this running, mowing the lawns, cleaning the house.” A cook came in three days a week, he said, but the house was now in its open season for the public

for three days a week. This meant constant cleaning. “Looking after a place like this is not my idea of a way to spend the rest of my life.”

He liked farming, the Earl said, and there was nothing much he could do in the farming line at the Mount Edg cumbe estate with its established tenant farmers.

The payment of SNZI.2 million death duties on the estate has still not been entirely resolved. The British Treasury recently agreed to take the valuable contents of the castle in part payment. If this had not eventuated, Lord Mount Edg cumbe planned to hold a public auction of them. Lady Joan, he said, would probably remain in England. Lady Tracy, aged 18, plans to go back to New Zealand in September this year. Lady Megan, aged 22, is working at a naval base; Lady Vanessa, aged 15, in a clothes boutique; and Lady Alison, aged 13, is still at school.