Los Angeles herald., 1907-09-13
POOR WITH
$4,000 A WEEK
SOME ENoLIsHMEN THlNK>sucH
SUM A PITTANcE
STATELY HOMES NEED PRETTY
ROBUST INCOMES
Duke of Devonshire owns Seven Man.
sions, Not One of Which He
Has Thoroughly Ex-
plored

| 1t is a pathetic fact that tnereAhre
several men in the United Kingdom who
would consider themselves on the brink
of bankruptcy if they were reduced by
| any evil stroke of fate to a mere pit
lance of G1OOO a week-who would find
1t simply impossible to rub along anyhow
on the income Of a simple millionaire,
which would be barely sufficient in some
cases to pay the expenses of the lordly
| pleasure houses which they nave IN
herited from their ancestors.
| The Duke of Devonshire for example,
| has no fewer than seven of these stately
homes-six in England and one In Ire
land-each of them fit for the reception
| of kind and not one of which, as he
| confessed the other day, he has yet
lived in long enough to explore thor
oughly. Probably he himself does not
| know within $1,000 how much these pa
| latial homes cost yearly to maintain,
but the annual cost has been said to
make very big hole in 100000.
In wentworth Woodhouse, which is
only one of his four palaces Lord Fitz-
william owns the largest private house
in England. 1t has a frontage of 500
feet, Its hall is so enormous that four
suburban villas could be built inside It,
and its owner could live in different
room every day for six weeks and still
leave several rooms unseen. The Duke OF
Portland owns five regal homes In Eng
land and Scotland, the value of which runs
into the millions, and which, with the at
tached gardens and estates, keep hundreds
Of servants employed At Welbeck he has
over thirty acres of kitchen gardens alone;
In the glasshouses and garden proper he
employs about seventy men and boys,
and his horticultural bill for the one
house is said to exceed $4,000 year.
BIenheim Palace
BIenheim palace, the Duke of Marlbor-
ough's Oxford seat, is so colossal that
the late duke used to declare he spent
$500 year on putty along for his win
dow panes. 1t actually cost 9300,000 to
build, In days when money was more
valuable than 1t is today; 1t is 34S feet
long, has fifteen stair-cases, and when 1t
was repaired some time ago his grace
found it necessary to sell his pictures and
books to pay the cost, which amounted
to more than 100000.
The Duke of Northumberland owns five
stately seats, at one alone of which
Syon house, Brentford-a staff of thirty
or forty men is kept busy, largely in the
magnificent kitchen garden and fruit
houses And yet the duke spends only a
small portion of the year in this prince
ly home, the rental value of which prob
ably exceeds the lord chancellor's official
income.
The marquis of Butte has five seats
in England, Scotland and Wales, and
one of them, Mountstuart, Rothesay,
covers an acre of ground, has $50
rooms and has actually cost over
f2, 900, 900, representing, even at a mod
est per cent, value of $4,000 year.
One can easily unders tand that his
lordship's income of E230,000 a year
is not a penny too much for the de-
mands of 1t.
Lord Londonderry's Seats
OF Lord Londonderry's four seats,
VINEYARD park (Stockton- -Tees)i is
100 yards long and boasts sculpture
gallery 100 feet long and fifty eight
feet high, while Goodwood, one of the
duke of Richmonds four mansions,
measures, with its two wings. 37s feet,
and requires about sixty domestics to
keep 1t in order.
Castle Howard, the splendid York
shire seat of Lord Carlisle has 1875
rooms; Raby castle stands on two
acres; STAFFORD house, the town resi-
dence of the duke of Sutherland, gives
employment to some sixty servants and
costs about 100000 year to keep
going and Eaton hall cost over f1,000,-
600 to build.
Such are but few of the stately
homes of England" some of which are
not seen by their lordly owners for
more than few weeks If at all, in
year, although each of them costs
many thousands year to maintain.
Wages and Servants
1t is said that there are at least sixty
country houses in the United Kingdom
which require a staff of from $50 to 500
servants and involve an annual bill for
wages ranging up to 100000. and in
many of them the gardens alone account
for more than $4,000 a year. How large
are the numbers of servants employed
in connection with these houses and es-
ftates is shown by the following example
that of a relatively modest establish
ment in Suffolk The total number of
servants employed is 173, and of these the
home farm and stables require 81, and
the garden 40; indoor servants number
II; keepers and night men, 16; the parks
and lakes employ 10; the brick kilns, g.,
while there are carpenters, bricklay-
ers, warreners, lodge keepers, 8
painters and half dozen engineers,
blaeksmiths and wheelwris hts.
This, it should be remembered, is but a
second class establishment. although its