It has been a year since Wentworth Woodhouse got a new owner, and already there have been hiccups. Last month, it was revealed that the cost of restoring this extraordinary building near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, could be as much as £200 million – a 376 per cent increase from the previous estimate of £42 million.
But the chief executive of its preservation trust, Sarah McLeod, isn’t scared – in fact, she’s excited by the challenge to come. “I count my blessings that I have been given the opportunity to be chief executive of the biggest stately home in the country, and it is a blank canvas,” she says.
This is truly the blankest of canvases. After years of neglect, the roof is falling in, there’s...