Posted on 02/01/2025 3:50:32 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Many can identify with the immense relief that accompanies downsizing later in life.
After years of slogging at the coal face and raising children, an empty nest can mean the chance to move to a smaller place with lower bills and experience the heady rush of freedom.
Sir Thomas Ingilby certainly knows the feeling: he recalls the moment of handing over the keys to his Yorkshire home as akin to 'a giant weight being lifted off my shoulders'. It was extraordinary,' the 69-year-old muses. 'I've never felt anything like it. It really was like a physical sensation.'
Then again, the weight in question was an unusually hefty one, given it came in the form of Ripley Castle, a vast and ancient estate that has been in Sir Thomas's family for 700 years and 28 generations and which he inherited at the tender age of 18.
That weight was not just the upkeep of the castle itself but preservation of a family legacy that dates back to the mid-1300s. From Catholic martyrs and Gunpowder Plotters to the redoubtable 'Trooper Jane', a female Ingilby ancestor who held Oliver Cromwell at gunpoint overnight in the castle library during the Civil War, the wealth of history here is immense.
Yet this year, if all goes to plan, a non-Ingilby (with £21million to spare) will take residence within these ancient walls for the first time.
'It's been half a century of responsibility and now we are ready for an irresponsible retirement' says the affable Sir Thomas.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I would like to buy that property.
But, besides being millions short of the asking price, I am three months short of 85 years of age!
The nightmare is the inheritance tax for such properties.
A good wench is useful anywhere, at any time.
ditch the clodhoppers and I’ll take her ...
kinda has trumpshire written all over it...
Well if you have a castle, wenches should be easy to come by.
Maybe someone with lots of money will turn it into a thriving ‘event’ venue.
I would never want to try and live in or manage an old pile like that.
Inheritance taxes in the UK are horrible. That's why so many home owners have been forced use their homes to earn money in other ways than just for traditional farming. In the old days, heirs had to sell off art collections, furniture, parcels of land, etc., to pay the inheritance taxes.
In 20th century Britain, a lot of families who couldn't afford to live in the homes or pay the taxes on them, either had interiors salvaged for sale, then had the homes torn down, or took the roofs off of them so they wouldn't have to pay the taxes on them. You had to pay taxes on a home that was inhabitable. It is a shame that so many historic homes were lost during that time. That's one of the reasons the National Trust was organized, to save these homes for the British people.
Is there a dungeon?
a winch pulls you out of a hole...
a wench pulls you into a hole...
Ok, you just won the thread.
Are they downsizing to a two bedroom two bath condo?
If you own the home, you're the serf and peasant according to the British government.
If you own the home, you're the serf and peasant according to the British government.
wench
/wen(t)SH/
noun
noun: wench; plural noun: wenches
1.
archaic•humorous
a girl or young woman.
“in the new film about Columbus, she plays the token buxom wench”
And of course add in any extra costs for hungry crocodiles eating visitors.
If you need a gamekeeper, I’d work cheap, provided there’s a cottage away from the main grounds.
Comes with a nice lake and the family cemetery plot out front.
Some rich Arab will buy it for weekend getaways from the jihad.
Pit-a-pat.
lol- run out of batteries in the first large room
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