Earl and Countess of Sandwich: We could teach the National Trust a thing or two

Telegraph

14 hours ago

At Mapperton House, a Jacobean manor in west Dorset, Luke Montagu, 12 th Earl of Sandwich and his American wife, Julie, Countess of Sandwich, are engaging in the most un-British of behaviour: asking for money.
They've set up a camera on a tripod in the mustard-painted library, a light-filled room with a grand piano and mullion windows overlooking the walled garden, and are filming themselves launching a YouTube crowdfunder. The Earl, 55, in an untucked pink shirt and grey trousers, lifts two threadbare manuscripts from one of the bookcases and passes them to the Countess, 51, who is also casually dressed in a striped top, blonde hair tied in a messy bun. She places them carefully onto a cushion on a table. 'I had no idea that they're the Fourth Earl's handwritten journals from his Grand Tour,' she excitedly tells viewers. 'We're going to get them restored, so we're starting a fundraiser – I've found an expert to resew and rebind them in an 18th-century way.'
The Montagus hope to raise £3,000 – and given the success of their previous crowdfunding requests, they should smash this target in a few weeks. When one of their eagle figurines, which have adorned the pillars at the front of the house for 300 years, fell off its perch last year, they quickly raised £23,000 to get them restored. Donors also paid £18,500 for the archive room to be overhauled with scanners, archive supplies and a fireproof safe.
Then there are the family Coronation robes, which have been conserved at the Royal School of Needlework thanks to a £1,500 crowdfunder; and the 18th-century Peacock Tapestries, which are being restored by celebrated conservator Emma Telford, after £20,000 of donations. Last year alone, the estate raised £70,000 for restoration from online benefactors gifting up to £1,500 at a time.
Donors come across the Earl and Countess on Mapperton Live, the couple's YouTube channel, which documents the highs and lows of running the house, five farms and 1,900 acres of pasture and woodlands. In return for their gift, they receive a certificate for making the project happen and – depending on the level of their contribution – a postcard of the project, a limited edition print and their name on a plaque on the estate.
The Earl, however, who inherited the estate in February this year on the death of his father, John Montagu, 11th Earl of Sandwich, admits that he finds asking for money deeply uncomfortable. 'I don't do it. I pass it over to Julie,' he says. 'Americans don't have any awkwardness about it.'
'I love it,' the Countess confirms. 'Fundraising is a skill. You have to have created a community in order to do it, and you have to keep reminding them how much you appreciate what they do.'
Today, all stately home owners face running and restoration costs so high that innovation is vital just to keep afloat. Hosting music festivals, corporate shoots or film crews (often all three) has become the norm.
But on my trip to Mapperton, it became clear the Montagus have happened upon something unique: a paying audience that doesn't need to visit the house. At least not in person. Rather, the couple are letting a growing online audience in on the secrets of their world.
It's working. As well as generous donors who want to be involved in restoration projects, the Earl and Countess have amassed more than 500 fee-paying super fans who pay between $5 (£4) and $500 (£368) per month for exclusive videos, handwritten thank you cards, free visits to the house and discounts on stays on the estate.
That's bolstered by the advertising revenue that Mapperton Live channel raises on YouTube (its most popular video, featuring the Countess in a swimsuit and bath hat taking a dip in the vast and decrepit 18th-century swimming pool, has garnered 1.6 million views).
And while new online fans don't have to visit the house, many inevitably do. These days, more than 10 per cent of Mapperton's 15,000 annual in-person visitors, who pay £20 to visit the house and gardens, have heard about the estate on YouTube, with some followers flying across the Atlantic to see it in real life.
Twice a year, the Montagus welcome 12 guests for an exclusive five-night stay at the estate: this year's Grand Historic Tours are sold out, despite costing £8,000 per person.
Sourcing relatively small cash gifts from many donors like this is a new tactic. The grandest historic houses – Blenheim Palace, for example – often rely on wealthy individuals to help fund multi-million pound restoration projects. At Mapperton, by contrast, crowdfunding and digital revenues now constitute more than 25 per cent of the estate's annual income.
The family has been struggling to get Mapperton out of the red since the Earl's grandfather, Victor Montagu, fell on hard times and downsized to the estate in 1962, having been forced to sell Hitchingbrooke, the family's seat near Cambridge.
But the Earl and Countess, who have four children aged from 19 to 26 (the older two from the Countess's previous marriage) believe that if they keep doing what they're doing it's only a matter of time before Mapperton is financially sustainable – which in the world of historic houses is almost unheard of. 'I don't want to jinx it, but by the time we hand it over to the next generation, it should be making money,' the Earl confirms.
It's notoriously difficult to gain any kind of following on YouTube, but the Montagus both had a background in media, which helped. The Earl had been running a film school, MetFilm School, which he founded in London before he took over the estate in 2016, and the Countess had TV presenting experience, having been signed up by both the BBC and CNN to be at Windsor Castle for the 2018 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan (as a divorced American married to an aristocrat, she made an ideal commentator).
It's clear as they chat to the camera for their latest crowdfunding video that they're also a winning double act: Julie the headstrong and impressively unsqueamish American Countess who will try her hand at anything, and Luke, the gentle, reserved Earl who is so awestruck by his wife's devotion to his crumbling pile that he loyally supports every one of her projects – with just the right amount of scepticism to build drama. 'You touching that book is almost too terrifying to watch,' he winces, as she flicks through the 4th Earl's journals.
She ignores him and keeps flicking, explaining that she's not wearing gloves, as if you can feel the pages, you're less likely to rip them. The Earl begins to read from the journals too: 'He made it as far as Constantinople – and he describes his cavorting, which gets quite racy … He was shipwrecked on the [Sicilian] island of Lampedusa, where he was taken in by a hermit.' The Countess puts up her hand. 'Can I speak? Because you're going on.'
The Earl explains, as we sit around the farmhouse table in their kitchen before filming, that viewers like to see the dynamics of their relationship onscreen. They remark on it in the comments beneath each video: 'When Luke sang your praises, it made me cry,' writes one; 'I love how unapologetically American you are,' observes another. The Countess gets emotional sometimes; she once cried on camera when they had a flood. 'She can turn it on. I take a much more British approach,' the Earl says. He has no shame in admitting that these new income streams are mainly down to her. 'The fact is, she's an absolute natural. She has no issue being almost anywhere and putting up the camera and filming. And she also does a lot of the complex stuff on YouTube.' 'I'm obsessed with it,' the Countess agrees. 'I look at all the analytics and make sure I'm up to date with all the techniques.'
They met through friends in 2003 at a drinks party in London; she was working for a marketing company, which was setting up offices in the UK. Unlike her husband's grandmother, Alberta Sturges Montagu, 9 th Countess of Sandwich, who was one of the gilded American heiresses who came across the Atlantic to be part of the British aristocracy more than a century ago, the Countess says her own upbringing in Chicago was not laced with dreams of castles and blue British blood.
On her one visit to London before she met the Earl, Julie Fisher (as she was then) found Britain decidedly unimpressive. 'The food was awful and it was really rainy and cold,' she says. 'People at home talked about the Royal family, particularly Charles and Diana, but I didn't know those titles still passed along until I met Luke.'
In fact, it was the Earl who seemed more attracted to the American way of life. Having studied liberal arts in New York at Columbia University and worked there during his 20s, when he returned to the UK in 2003, he was disappointed not to have found an American bride.
'I love the States, I love the energy of the people – it represents something completely different from the environment I'd grown up in. There's something about the energy and the can-do spirit of Americans.'
Was he excited for Prince Harry when he, too, found an American wife? 'Their wedding was a period of real optimism, and there was a sense that things were being shaken up and modernised and it's so sad that it hasn't worked out.'
The Countess' own experience was very different to that of the Duchess of Sussex, she says, as she was marrying into the aristocracy rather than the Royal family. 'We're in a different league. There would have been more rules and protocols that she had to follow. I've always felt the freedom to be able to do things and perhaps she didn't. Luke and his parents were incredibly warm and welcoming – I never felt excluded. I wasn't ashamed of my nasal accent.'
It was an ominous start, though. When, three months after their first meeting, the Earl invited Julie to Mapperton, she had no idea what to expect. 'We hadn't talked about my family or the house very much,' the Earl says. 'That same evening, we got a call saying three wild boars had escaped from the neighbouring farm and needed hunting before they took out some poor unsuspecting walker. So I grabbed my rifle and headed off with Julie to the woods.'
The Countess: 'I was holding a light.'
Was she okay about blood sports?
'No!'
'I shot three wild boar, including a huge sow weighing 400lb. These animals were lying dead, and we had to get them out. It was going to be absolutely impossible with just the two of us. So I called my parents.'
'They'd just arrived back from holiday,' the Countess continues.
'Julie and my parents' first experience of each other was each holding a paw.'
'We were carrying the animals, and they were like: 'So Julie, where are you from?' And I was like: 'I'm from Chicago.''
The Earl's parents stayed at the helm of the estate until 2016. 'They saved it from ruin,' he says. Even so, 'I knew that when I took over, it would be a financial challenge.'
It was in lockdown that the Countess first became involved in the future of the estate, and Mapperton found a new audience. 'We lost all our income in terms of visitors, so we thought perhaps there was an opportunity to replicate tours on the internet,' the Earl explains. 'We'd film my parents taking their usual tours of the house.'
With the Countess as presenter, the Earl as producer and Nestor, 19, their youngest son, as sound man, they created their first crowdfunding video. They were touring All Saints, the estate's church, in June 2020, when the Countess first asked the public for donations to repoint the stonework, which was coming apart and donations – mainly from Americans – began to flood in: £1,500 in total.
Did the in-laws hide their heads in shame? Not at all, the Countess says. 'We'd read out the donors' names, which they loved,' she explains. 'I'd say, thank you so much, George, from Sacramento, California, who has just given $50 (£42.50) and my mother-in-law would say, 'Fantastic! We'll even take your dimes.'
Soon, the Montagus were producing a regular Saturday night show, Mapperton Live, which continues to this day. 'We over-engineered it to begin with,' the Earl says. 'These days, we never do a second take. Your audience buys into you as people – they find they share your values and interests.'
Not many followers will have titles and live in a stately home, though. Do they ever get trolled? 'People are mostly incredibly nice, although we used to get some nasty comments,' the Earl says. The Countess is nodding. 'They said, Julie, do you ever comb your hair?'
Did she find that hurtful?
'Never. I don't take it personally. Some people find that hard. For me, it's not hard at all.'
Does she not feel she has to make an effort for the camera, though?
'Oh my God, no. That's not me. I'd rather spend my time doing something else than putting on make-up and doing my hair.'
It all sounds jolly good fun, but the reality is that it's a scary time for historic houses; an effective 20 per cent rate of inheritance tax (IHT) for both farmland and family-owned businesses is going to be disastrous for many, the Earl explains. 'Some will be able to apply for conditional exemption but many will not.'
Recent figures from Historic Houses suggest a third of members will have to sell chattels in order to pay IHT liabilities, but this won't always cover the bill. 'It's going to mean that many more are sold. I can tell you that when they get into public hands, their stories are less interesting. They're much more expensive to run. We run this at a fraction of the cost of a National Trust property. We are the right people to be in place,' he says.
The Earl and Countess are aware, though, that they cannot focus purely on digital revenue, not least because the next generation might be camera-shy. Yet without the head of steam created by YouTube, they admit the estate would be struggling, largely because Mapperton is an hour and a half from any major city or town. 'We just don't have the population density to get people to come. We've recognised that problem and removed it by saying you don't have to come in person.'
Some 62 per cent of their audience are American – as are 99 per cent of their donors. When the Montagus were invited to speak at a conservation society in Alabama last year, they were treated like royalty by fans. 'They all wanted to have their photograph taken with us,' he says. 'We were very impressed by the Royal family at that point. If we had to do that every day, we'd be exhausted.
'This is what historic houses are about – connection,' he continues. 'We're all looking for connection in our lives. It's important that these estates are shared and understood and relevant – that's how they will survive.'