Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2006 | Page 36

FEATURE

Ghosts of the past,
plans for the future
A 10-year plan for further restoration at stately ruin

It was once the grandest and most
striking residence on the Isle of Wight,
but now all that remains of the elegant
Appuldurcombe House is an imposing
baroque shell, full of tantalizing clues to
its chequered past.
The 18th century house, which
sits surrounded by a vast expanse
of rolling downand, was the family
seat of the Worsley family for some
300 years. However its 21st century
guardians are the Owen family,
who came by it 20 years ago when
they bought their dairy farm, which
forms part of the 300-acre estate.
Jane Owen, her husband Raymond
and two of their three sons, James
and John, have come to love the ruin
in spite of the heavy demands it has
made on their lives. They manage
the place on behalf of English
Heritage, as well as running their
own herd of 100 beef cattle and the

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holiday cottage business they have
created out of some of the estate’s
ancillary buildings including the
stables, coach house and lodge. “I
might retire one day to seven days a
week” jokes Jane.
The family presided over the 1987
replacement of gigantic windows
on the front wall of the building which had previously been just huge
black holes - as well as thousands of
pounds worth of re-roofing over the
front section.
This work meant that whilst the
building might not be habitable, it
can now benefit from some level of
use as a venue for open air theatre,

weddings and tourist visits.
In fact it’s the ghostly, ruined
nature of this old house that lends
it its character. Thousands of
people every year wander around
the eerie walls and venture into
the low-ceilinged cellars and
allow their imaginations to run
wild with images of Henry VIII, a
regular visitor to the place when h B