11 hours ago
‘We turned a £25m country estate into Britain's poshest B&B'
The Ellis family stumbled upon one of England's loveliest stately homes for sale completely by accident. They were looking for a small plot of land to start a wine business when an agent got in touch.
'He said he knew of 500 acres that were coming up,' says James Ellis, but said it came with a caveat: 'it's got this really big house in the middle of it'.'
James's father, Richard Ellis, had founded the holiday lettings business, Norfolk Country Cottages, in 1992 with his late wife, Lesley. Three decades later, having sold the company, the family were looking to buy some land on which they could start growing vines.
The caveat turned out to be Grade I-listed Wolterton Hall, 10 miles from Cromer, rebuilt in the 1740s by Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole, brother of Robert Walpole, Britain's first prime minister.
Recently restored, it was on the market for £25m. The Ellises walked into the house and fell in love. 'I could see the look on my dad's face,' says James. 'I thought, we're in trouble – we're going to do this.'
And they did. The Ellises' purchase of Wolterton in 2023 was, the agent later said, 'the most significant property sale in Norfolk for a long time'. And to think they'd just been looking for a bit of land.
But who could blame them? Wolterton was a catch. It wasn't being sold in a parlous state, and by stately homes standards, it wasn't mind-bogglingly enormous.
As James's brother, Will, the historian of the family, explains, it's a stately home 'but it was designed as a house, as Horatio Walpole put it, that was 'not extremely large, nor little… neither to be envied, nor despised'. It was designed to be an oasis, not as the kind of house that you're intimidated by.'
Part of the Walpole family's Norfolk empire for almost 300 years, Wolterton is less well known than some of the other local Whig palaces – Houghton, the home of the Marquess of Cholmondeley, and the Earl of Leicester's Holkham. Robin Walpole, 10th Baron Walpole, inherited Wolterton in 1989, but after he made his home at nearby Mannington Hall, Wolterton lay empty.
In 2016, Robin Walpole put Wolterton on the market, and it was snapped up for somewhere in the region of £10m by the restoration duo Keith Day and Peter Sheppard.
Six years later, they had comprehensively restored it inside and out, and won the Georgian Group's award for the restoration of a country house for their efforts. Eager for a new project, they decided to move on from Wolterton – which is where the Ellises came in.
Earlier this month, Wolterton opened to the public for the first time in a generation, with a new arts and culture programme featuring work by the artists and sculptors, Maggi Hambling and Ro Robertson, alongside the house's stately interiors.
Entry to Wolterton is free, with donations to the Ted Ellis Trust, the conservation charity established in the name of Richard Ellis's uncle, encouraged.
'You can come along and look at the art and then sit outside and take in the lake,' says Will. 'We want to share the space and let people see the environment, and reconnect with the arts heritage which is at Wolterton.'
The Walpoles were ready collectors – what is left at Wolterton will be on show to the public, including a newly acquired portrait of Maria Walpole, Duchess of Gloucester, by Thomas Gainsborough.
'There's a Rubens in the Wallace Collection that used to be at Wolterton,' adds Will. 'We'd love to have that back.'
The family's management of Wolterton has taken a slightly different shape to others who end up in their position, by design or inheritance. No one is living in the big house, for a start.
'Wolterton needs to become a sustainable business,' says James. 'If you've got family living there, then there's a clash. It frees it up from that perspective and stops any sibling rivalry.'
Part of that sustainable business model harks back to the family's hospitality roots. As well as offering exclusive-use, whole-house rentals, and holiday lets in estate cottages, the bedrooms at Wolterton are bookable on a nightly basis – from the state bedroom with adjoining boudoir at £700 a night, to the Ripley room at £300 a night.
'We're not calling it a hotel,' says James, laughing, 'but it's like the poshest B&B you could ever book.'
Whatever the results of their bedding-in period, the family is keen that Wolterton does not become a museum. 'We want it to be alive,' says James. 'When you have people in it, the walls and the fabric of the building give back.'
It all seems very brave, to part with millions of pounds to buy an enormous house with 500 acres and an unlimited list of maintenance works.
'You're not the first to question our sanity,' says James. 'We're the second generation and we feel very fortunate to be in the position we're in.' Their challenge is two-fold.
'First, it's [about] being custodians and looking after this beautiful asset for the years that we're around. Secondly, it's [about] how do we turn this into something sustainable that we can pass on to the next generation? We love that business challenge. We think it's doable, but it's going to take some head-scratching.'
So far, Wolterton is not yet commercially sustainable. 'That will take some time,' says Will. 'But is it a good business, is it fun, and is it building a good team with a good culture? It's starting to tick those boxes. The profitability will come with trying to do the right thing.'
There is, he adds, more to value than commerciality. 'There is a community around Wolterton and we're opening up for that in the way the Walpoles did. We're hoping that we can play a role in that community as part of rebuilding the aura around the place.'
Both James and Will – as well as their brother Tom, and sister Hannah – feel very lucky to be at Wolterton. 'We got into this purposefully to find something fun to do again – that was our motivation,' says James. 'We didn't need to do this, but we wanted to run something ourselves together again.'
