Visit to Apethorpe Palace

Today is Margaret's 63rd birthday and we spent it by taking a trip to Apethorpe Hall, followed by lunch at the Cross Keys in King's Cliffe.

Apethorpe Hall is an interesting place - it's probably the best-preserved Jacobean palace in the country, but was almost lost due to neglect.

It was built as a hunting lodge on the Rockingham Forest estate and came into the ownership of Henry VIII, who passed it on to Elizabeth I. She has her eye on an estate in Gloucestershire and so suggested a swap with the owner of that place.

When the queen suggests she'd like to swap, you don't say "no thank you" and so the deal was done. Queen Elizabeth stayed there a couple of times (in 1562 and 1566) and her successor James I was a regular visitor and even financed some extensions and improvements to the place.

After 300 years of ownership by various Earls of Westmorland, the family hit hard times and sold to Lord Brassey in 1904. They lived there until just after the Second World War when it was sold to the Catholic Church as a correction centre for boys. It was sold in the 1970s to a Libyan businessman, but political problems with Libya and the Gaddafi regime meant he could not take up residence and so it remained neglected with a caretaker - George Kelly - staying on unpaid and doing what he could to keep the place intact.

He made numerous representations to the government and English Heritage and, in 2004, it was compulsorily purchased by the government and given to English Heritage. They spent millions making the place watertight and restoring various plasterworks and then sold it to Jean Christophe Iseux, Baron von Pfetten who is a French academic and diplomat who has served as senior advisor to the Chinese government and also advised Iran on its nuclear power programme.

He acquired Apethorpe Hall in 2014 and promptly renamed it Apethorpe Palace. We say Ape-thorpe, but the upper crust call it App-thorpe apparently.

Anyway, he's now in residence at one end of the building (when he's not in one of his French chateaux) while renovations continue. He had to agree various covenants when buying the place, one of which was to open it to the public 35 days a year. He's actually exceeding that requirement by opening it for 50 days, so good for him!

You can't turn up and look round; all visits are guided by English Heritage staff and have to be pre-booked. We went with my Probus Club.

I've been through Apethorpe a few times, but had no idea this place was there. Apart from the Baron's living quarters, which you don't get to see, the building is pretty much a shell, with no plumbing, no heating and no electricity. English Heritage have fixed the roofs, made it weatherproof and also stabilised and made safe a number of ornate plaster ceilings from the Jacobean period.

They are elaborate, beautifully preserved/restored and it's interesting to walk through a place that has no furniture. It feels old in a sense that other old buildings, which are furnished, lived in and have all "mod cons" don't. I guess it was wonderfully atmospheric and because of the absence of modern fittings, it felt more in touch with its past.

Very old avenue of yew trees in the gardens.