Britain | Grand houses

Britain’s palaces and stately homes are empty

That’s quite nice for the people living in them

Enjoying the tulips, awaiting the tumbrils

“SOMETIMES WHEN I’m here early in the morning, it’s like some kind of scene from ‘Brideshead Revisited’...this huge great rambling medieval palace, with the gardens slowly becoming overgrown, and there’s just a couple of people walking around.” Graham Dillamore (pictured), gardens and estates operations manager at Hampton Court Palace, Henry VIII’s favourite residence, is enjoying an experience which few have ever had before: being almost alone in a palace. The absence of visitors, he says, may have encouraged supernatural occupants to come out. “I keep looking behind me, and hearing footsteps.”

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “A palace of one’s own”

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