Britain’s wealthiest landowner cares for the wounded soldiers
DUKE DONATES £6.25M ESTATE AS CARE CENTRE FOR WOUNDED SOLDIERS
Britain’s wealthiest landowner has converted a country estate into a centre for wounded soldiers
By Kate Cunningham
BRITAIN’S wealthiest landowner has bought a country estate to convert into a £300million centre for wounded soldiers.
The Duke of Westminster intends to donate the 354-acre Nottinghamshire estate of Stanford Hall, near Loughborough.
It has 35 bedrooms, a theatre and a huge outdoor swimming pool and has previously changed hands for £6.25million.
The Duke, who is the most senior officer in the Territorial Army, with the rank of a major-general, plans to donate the run-down Grade II listed building and grounds so it can be transformed into the largest rehabilitation complex in Britain.
It will also offer services to injured civilians.
The estate is four times as large as Headley Court in Surrey, the Ministry of Defence’s military-only main rehabilita tion centre where there is little scope for expansion.
The 60-year-old Duke, who is worth £7billion and owns large swathes of central London, will head the fundraising campaign for the project and will make a “substantial donation” to redevelopment. The defence and health ministries are also involved and the Help For Heroes and Royal British Legion charities are expected to provide money for the new centre, which should be open by 2018.
MoD Surgeon General Philip Raffaelli said the centre would also help to rehabilitate civilians.
Although British forces have left Iraq and are due to pull out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the numbers of war wounded is likely to remain high.
Many servicemen and women who may once have died now survive their injuries thanks to advances in medical science.
About 800 were admitted to Headley Court last year, compared to 640 in 2010 and just 163 in 2008.
Jim Rowlinson, chairman of the local branch of the British Legion, said: “Stanford Hall would be an ideal location for such a prestigious project.
“The Duke should be commended for his actions.”
Local residents are set to meet the Duke of Westminster later this month.Planning permission has still to be secured.
The Duke has taken a keen interest in the military – advising ministers on the reservists – since joining the TA in 1970.
The move follows in the tradition of grand properties becoming military hospitals. Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, for example, served as an infirmary for wounded Indian troops in the First World War.
This history of many stately homes was recently played out on television when Downton Abbey was turned into a hospital for soldiers.
In real life the setting for the ITV drama – Highclere Castle in Berkshire – was a military hospital between 1914 and 1916.
Stanford Hall was built in the late 18th century for Charles Vere Dashwood, the high sheriff of Nottingham.
