£224,000 Grant for Urgent Repairs at Wentworth Woodhouse
We have stepped in to help stately home Wentworth Woodhouse, listed at Grade I, with a grant of £224,000 towards an unexpected heritage repair bill.
The Rotherham mansion, owned since 2017 by a charitable trust, is undergoing a massive restoration – one of the largest current heritage projects in the UK.
Over £7.2 million of crucial repairs to its badly leaking roof are now nearing completion.
But after work started, heritage specialists discovered that intricate Georgian cornices, 18 metres above the ground, were crumbling away.
Large sections of stone are coming loose, smaller ones have already fallen off and water is seeping in, causing further damage and posing a potential risk to people below.
The estimated cost of the repairs was £370,000. Although small in comparison to the vast swathes of roof that have been made safe, there was no money available for these repairs.
Action was required before the £1.1 million scaffold facilitating the mansion’s roof work is taken down from May onwards.
We have given the grant of £224,000 to replace over 90 metres of the ornate sandstone and limestone cornice, which runs around the roofline of the mansion’s Palladian East Front.
The remaining money required has been funded by grants from Freshgate Trust Foundation, the Leche Trust, The Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation, and an anonymous donor.
We’ve been working closely with the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust to help secure the future of this magnificent Georgian building and are passionate about seeing it restored to its former glory for the benefit of generations to come. We’re delighted to be able to offer financial aid to fund the urgent repairs, as well as continue to help shape Wentworth Woodhouse’s future in our role as the Trust’s expert advisors.”
