Name: Longleat.
Age: 435.
Appearance: Massive pile.
Ouch. Which is to say, a huge stately home: 130 rooms, set in 10,000 acres.
I thought it was something to do with lions. It is – in 1966, Longleat’s owner, the 6th Marquess of Bath, created a drive-through safari park in the grounds. Some years earlier he had opened the house to the public to drum up some income.
Is he the one with the wifelets? No, that’s his son, the 7th Marquess, AKA the “loins of Longleat” – keeper of many mistresses (74 all told), wearer of eccentric hats and painter of terrible erotic murals.
So what’s he done lately? At 83, he is slowing down, but he has taken part in a new BBC documentary series, All Change At Longleat, which follows the gradual handover of the estate to his son Ceawlin, Viscount Weymouth.
So the Marquess is moving out, and the Viscount’s moving in? At present they both live in the house, on different floors.
Sounds cosy. It might be if they were on speaking terms, but they aren’t.
Why not? Ceawlin saw fit to take down one of his father’s garish murals in his own apartment, without telling him until he had done it.
And the Marquess was upset? More hurt than angry. A tentative rapprochement has since collapsed over a dispute about paint colours.
Surely Ceawlin’s mother could broker a truce? The Marchioness lives in Paris most of the time. And she and Ceawlin aren’t speaking either.
Why not? She apparently objected to his marriage to Emma, now Viscountess Weymouth. According to Ceawlin, his mother asked him: “Are you sure about what you’re doing to 400 years of bloodline?” She was banned from the wedding, and is allowed no contact with her grandson.
That is one crazy family. There’s more: rent rises in the village, a collection of Hitler memorabilia in the clock tower and monkeys pulling off car aerials.
It’s like Downton Abbey crossed with Dallas, on steroids. Even more than you think. Downton’s Lord Grantham, Hugh Bonneville, narrates the series. And “Ceawlin”, pronounced correctly, sounds a bit like “Sue Ellen”.
Does it? Not really, no.
Do say: “Welcome to Longleat! Please roll up your windows.”
Don’t say: “Lock down! One of the wifelets has escaped!”
