On Sunday evening we attended a jazz concert and hog roast in the grounds of Maunsel House, the ancestral seat of the Slade Family and home of Sir Benjamin Slade. The thirteenth century house is where Geoffrey Chaucer allegedly wrote part of the Canterbury Tales.

In an interview in the Daily Mail on the occasion of the house opening to the public for the first time (dated August 26^th 1986) Sir Ben is quoted as saying that he wanted to take the “stuffiness” out of stately home visiting. “Most houses do it on a show-off scale, but the majority of visitors don’t feel relaxed. Here they can do what they want- even grill a streak in the grounds. It’s the unstateliest home in England.”

While Maunsel has been vastly improved, with most of the dry rot and rising damp that greeted visitors twenty years ago now gone, there is still a distinct feeling that this is anything but a museum piece of a stately home. Especially when compared to the experience of visiting a National Trust property like Knightshayes Court, where we’d spent the morning in an attempt to escape the torrential rain.

What’s more interesting, however, is Sir Ben’s quest to find an heir to this £7.5 million country pile. Having no children of his own, this eccentric, right-wing aristocrat has made international headlines thanks to his world-wide hunt for an appropriate Slade to continue his blood-line. No matter if he’s English or not.

It was even suggested last year that he had found a close DNA match in Isaac Slade, singer with Denver-based band The Fray. The 26-year-old has shown no indication of wanting to take on Maunsel, though he has formed an improbable friendship with the baronet.

To find out more about Sir Ben’s quest, read this recent interview in the Independent on Sunday Review by Robert Chalmers.

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 3:27 pm and is filed under EVENTS & PASTIMES. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.