In the early 1980s, a businessman from Florida, Dr Gerald Rolph, was in search of a castle in Ireland to use as a summer house. After a fruitless search of many months, he was persuaded to visit Allerton in North Yorkshire in October 1983. The house — in its present form largely rebuilt from 1848 — had been in institutional use for the best part of 20 years and was in urgent need of far-reaching repair. Most people would have been intimidated, but Gerald was delighted by the building, which he offered to buy the very next day, and determined to restore ‘as part of English and world heritage’.

Over the following years, the roof of the building was renewed, the interior — which was suffering from dry rot and water damage — repaired, refurnished and rewired. As this work drew to a close, in

See Full Page