{"id":28968,"date":"2025-07-28T08:44:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T08:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/28968\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T08:44:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T08:44:20","slug":"my-daughters-accept-that-only-my-son-will-inherit-my-2000-acre-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/28968\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018My daughters accept that only my son will inherit my 2,000 acre estate\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Raymond Asquith, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, has lived many lives. In one, he was the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) Moscow head of station who smuggled the Russian double agent Oleg Gordievsky<\/a> out of the Soviet Union in the boot of a car in 1985. \u201cI\u2019m very glad we pulled it off,\u201d he says. \u201cThe Foreign Office only gave us a 20pc chance of success.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Gordievsky had been caught, \u201cthey would have shot him\u201d and a lorry would have been arranged to crash into the Asquiths\u2019 car: \u201cthat\u2019s how they assassinated a lot of people \u2013 after the event, a KGB officer told me [that] would have happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

But somehow, being Britain\u2019s most blue-blooded (former) spy is merely his hinterland. While he\u2019s had a role at Mells Manor in Somerset<\/a>, for the last 14 years he has been at the helm, having officially taken over when his father died in 2011. Mells had belonged to his late grandmother Katharine Asquith, ne\u00e9 Horner\u2019s family since 1543.<\/p>\n

Lord Oxford has rebuilt the estate team from scratch and set about doing up its 50 cottages, \u201cbringing them up to a state of furnishing and comfort which is acceptable\u201d. Mells, he says, is \u201ca very desirable place to move to. I\u2019ve never sold any land \u2013 indeed, I\u2019ve bought two farms \u2013 and I\u2019ve never sold any cottages, so there\u2019s not a big turnover of property.\u201d<\/p>\n

The manor house is not open to the public, but the outside can be seen from nearby roads and footpaths. The inside is disarmingly lovely, unsurprisingly packed full of books about Russia, a sketch of wartime prime minister Herbert Asquith by Violet, Duchess of Rutland, hanging in the library, and Mary Queen of Scots\u2019 execution veil on display in the next room. Nearby is Henry VIII\u2019s charter granting Mells to the Horners for \u00a31,831 \u2013 19 shillings, 11 pence, and a farthing.<\/p>\n

\"Lord<\/p>\n

Lord Oxford\u2019s library contains a vast collection of historical literature and paintings – John Lawrence<\/p>\n

Upkeep of such a place could easily be a full-time job, but its custodian has organised Mells in such a way that Lord Oxford is able to maintain his life beyond it and not be there every day. He continues to have business interests \u2013 and a flat \u2013 in Ukraine, and is an active member of the House of Lords, to which he was elected in 2014 as a Liberal Democrat, and in which he now sits as a crossbencher. His great-grandfather was responsible for ending the Lords\u2019 ability to veto bills. \u201cThat was probably a good thing,\u201d he says, \u201cbut to turn out the hereditary peers from the Lords \u2013 that\u2019s a pity. But I would say that, wouldn\u2019t I?\u201d<\/p>\n

He hasn\u2019t always lived at Mells. His father, Julian \u201cTrim\u201d Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, grandson of Herbert Asquith, worked for the colonial service, and the family \u2013 his wife Anne Palairet, a former Bletchley girl, and their five children \u2013 moved around a lot.<\/p>\n

Lord Oxford was born in Libya; before he was 10, his father had had postings in Zanzibar, the West Indies, and the Seychelles. Sent to school in England aged nine, he spent the holidays in a house on the Mells estate with his grandmother Katharine and his aunt Lady Helen Asquith, the big house let to David Barran, chairman of Shell. In 1967, Trim and Anne returned to the UK and settled at Mells, by which time Lord Oxford was at Ampleforth.<\/p>\n

\"Mells<\/p>\n

Lord Oxford spent school holidays on the Mells estate while his parents lived abroad – John Lawrence<\/p>\n

Graduating from Balliol College, Oxford University<\/a> in the early 1970s, he considered becoming a composer, but having married Clare Pollen, the soon-to-be Shakespearean scholar, in 1978, he thought he ought to get a salaried job and applied to the Foreign Office. Soon after, Margaret Thatcher\u2019s civil service recruitment freeze was enacted. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t take me,\u201d he remembers.<\/p>\n

A year later nothing had changed. \u201cA guy from the Foreign Office said, \u2018we would have liked to have had you \u2013 but you can join our friends, the SIS\u201d he says. He went for an interview. \u201cI hadn\u2019t volunteered for it. I actually intended to join the Foreign Office [rather than this being a euphemism]!\u201d He took the job, since he needed one. \u201cMy father was disappointed. He said, \u2018you\u2019ll never be an ambassador and you\u2019ll always have to tell lies\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having passed the SIS induction course, Lord Oxford \u2013 then Viscount Asquith \u2013 was asked where he\u2019d like to be posted to. He said Moscow. \u201cThey said, \u2018nothing ever happens in Moscow\u2019. Sure enough, it didn\u2019t in those days, because the KGB was so efficient,\u201d he says. He stuck with his decision nevertheless. \u201cIt was quite a good choice. I\u2019ve not regretted a single thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life in the Soviet Union wasn\u2019t easy. For years, the Asquiths and their children were subject to constant KGB surveillance. \u201cEverything was monitored. When my wife and I wanted to communicate anything, we had to write it to each other as notes and then put it down the loo,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

\"Mells<\/p>\n

Henry VIII\u2019s charter granted Mells to the Horner family for 19 shillings, 11 pence, and a farthing – John Lawrence<\/p>\n

Their flat was searched daily, either by their Russian nanny or by KGB agents she let in. \u201cIt was quite wearing, psychologically.\u201d One day, they were disagreeing about where they had planned to go for a picnic. He asked the ceiling, \u201cWell, where did we agree?\u201d A note came under the door with the answer.<\/p>\n

On the whole, the KGB did not like to be noticed. \u201cThe one thing you don\u2019t signal to the KGB is that you know they\u2019re there, because they get very ratty and feel that they\u2019re unprofessional,\u201d he says. He has years\u2019 worth of extraordinary stories. One day, while out cross-country skiing, he got stuck in a rut and went straight into the tree in front of him. \u201cHiding in it was a KGB photographer taking photographs of me. He thought I\u2019d done it deliberately and was furious!\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it true that once a spook, always a spook? \u201cWe don\u2019t ever call them spooks,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople say you never retire, but that\u2019s nonsense. I took the decision that when I left SIS [in 1997] I would leave it. It\u2019s a mistake after you\u2019ve resigned to hang around pretending to be a historian or a librarian.\u201d<\/p>\n

As head of the family, is Lord Oxford the keeper of the Asquith memory? \u201cCertainly I\u2019m a keeper of the Horner memory \u2013 most of the Asquith stuff has gone to the Bodleian.\u201d He talks lovingly of his great uncle Edward Horner, killed in 1917 at Cambrai, of whom a statue by Sir Alfred Munnings stands in St Andrew\u2019s Church, Mells, on top of a stone plinth by Sir Edwin Lutyens.<\/p>\n

\"Statue<\/p>\n

A statue of Edward Horner, Lord Oxford\u2019s great uncle who was killed in the First World War – John Lawrence<\/p>\n

Likewise of his \u201cextraordinary\u201d late grandfather Raymond Asquith, who was killed at the Somme in 1916. \u201cHe was so self-deprecating, he never showed off his brilliance,\u201d he says. \u201cIt may have been because of his mother\u2019s death [when he was young] but he just didn\u2019t really have an enormous amount of self-confidence. That\u2019s what most people don\u2019t really see in him.\u201d<\/p>\n

In time, Mells will become the responsibility of Lord Oxford\u2019s son Mark, Viscount Asquith. His four daughters \u201chave accepted that the son will inherit the land,\u201d he says. \u201cI run two businesses which they will own between them \u2013 they are provided for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vineyard he has planted on the estate will be theirs too. \u201cI hope they will feel that they still have an interest in Mells and that it\u2019s not going to be entirely male primogeniture that dominates,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Heirs and Graces: A History of the Modern Aristocracy by Eleanor Doughty is published by Hutchinson on September 4<\/p>\n

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raymond Asquith, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, has lived many lives. In one, he was the Secret…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,22779,133,22772,22774,22776,22775,22778,22777,22771,22780,131,132,22773],"class_list":["post-28968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-earl-of-oxford-and-asquith","tag-finance","tag-foreign-office","tag-herbert-asquith","tag-john-lawrence","tag-katharine-asquith","tag-kgb","tag-lady-helen-asquith","tag-lord-oxford","tag-mells-manor","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-raymond-asquith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}