Wentworth Woodhouse needs £150m to complete restoration dream, trust chief executive reveals

Sarah McLeod said while £30m has been spent so far on capital projects, the site is still in the early stages of its regeneration journey.

It comes as the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust launches a legacy fund in memory of its chairman Julie Kenny, who died suddenly earlier this year.

Almost £100,000 has already been raised for the fund with the money set to be used for community projects that are part of the day-to-day operations of the trust rather than the major restoration works which will require specific capital funding grants.

Dame Julie, who died in February aged 67, had played a pivotal role in the trust purchasing Wentworth Woodhouse in 2017 for £7m to kickstart a huge regeneration project at the site.

The Grade I listed Georgian mansion standing in 87 acres of grounds was once one of the great houses in England but fell into decline and decay after the Government ordered in 1947 that opencast coal mining should take place within 100 yards of the house.

Unlike many other great historical homes, there was no endowment in place to support the preservation trust’s work.

A 2018 masterplan for the site said more than £100m would be needed to deliver the regeneration work over a 25-year period.

With the site now back open to the general public and regularly hosting a variety of events, Ms McLeod told The Yorkshire Post there was a widespread misconception that regeneration work on the site had been complete.

She said there is much still to achieve.

“We are far from done here,” she said.

“After Julie’s death there was quite a lot of coverage saying Wentworth was saved and restored. It hasn’t been restored - we’ve done £30m of work which is exceptional but we have still got another £150m to do and to raise. The story is not yet finished. We have just started the first few chapters.”

Ms McLeod, who had worked alongside Dame Julie since 2017 on the project, said the trust faces an annual challenge to balance its books so the longer-term restoration work can progress.

She said much of the property and ancillary buildings remain “unusable space” which it makes growing its revenue more challenging.

“The priority is to get more of the site developed to generate more income to really get ourselves to a point of comfortable sustainability,” she said.

“When you look at places like Blenheim and Chatsworth, they make huge amounts of money but they are 50 years ahead of us on their journey and weren’t semi-derelict in the first place.”