DESPITE his ancestors inventing the sandwich, one Viscount and his wife have been left struggling with their 21st century country estate home.
After moving into the property, the pair decided to document the highs and lows of maintaining, repairing and restoring the house to its former glory.
Julie and Luke, Viscountess and Viscount Hinchingbrooke, have had their fair share of trouble though, which has even led them to beg for donations via GoFundMe.
In a recent YouTube video about their home in Dorset, which has been dubbed Britain’s Finest Manor by Country Life magazine, Luke shared: “This week, Julie and I are horrified to discover that our 18th century swimming pool has turned into ghastly green primordial soup.”
They had been in the pool three days prior and after returning home from a brief trip away, the pool had turned into what looked like a swamp.
“It’s actually worse than I’ve ever seen it,” Luke shared, before explaining that the pool was their prize project the year before.
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After removing the algae, the ‘pool guy’, Adam Pagan-Butler, told them it was “all their fault” as they must have left the tap on.
“A massive amount of nutrients have gone into that pool,” he told the couple.
He then said they needed to dive in and remove the algae “mechanically” to clean it out while the plant islands extracted the nutrients.
Luckily, Luke and Julie managed to get the pool back in working order.
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In another clip, the pair said they had experienced one of the “worst weeks” at the estate as everything had gone wrong.
They had lost one of the eagles on the gate, they dealt with a “biblical flood and storm” that caused a leak in their home, while another leak occurred at their farm.
Speaking to a construction worker, Luke asked: “What’s the plan?” about the fallen eagle structure.
He responded: “What’s happened is the eagle, when it was made, it’s on an iron armature and so the iron goes down the leg, which is bolted down. The iron has corroded away and pulled it away from being upright.”
The first step was to make it safe and then they would hoist it away to get repaired.
Meanwhile, inside their home was another disaster as there were several leaks found during a storm, which created a huge puddle inside.
Luke said he found the water coming from a part of the ceiling.
“The next stop for me is to go up and see if there’s some sort of flood up above on the roof,” he told viewers.
On the roof, he found a drain that was stuffed full of leaves, which he believed was the root cause of the leak.
“The good news is the problem isn’t too difficult to rectify, I hope, but we’ve got major problems down below,” he continued.
However, Julie said they were left “upset” and “emotional” as yet another leak caused water damage on their children’s things as well as some letters.
“I get emotional because it’s the kids’ stuff,” she said.
The constant and unexpected repairs to the estate means Luke and Julie have had to set up various forms of financial help links for people to donate.
“Please support the restoration of our 18th Century Grade II listed eagles,” they wrote in the description of their YouTube video before adding a GoFundMe link.
They’ve also got a Patron account, where members get more benefits like “special gifts as well as cards and photos from us”.
Not to mention, they’ve advertised the estate for people to come and stay in for five nights.
While the Viscount and Viscountess might be struggling, how open they’ve been about it all on YouTube has gone down well with viewers of the Mapperton Live: This (un)Aristocratic Manor Life channel.
“You are both so cheerful as you perform arduous tasks around the estate! You are both such lovely people!” one person wrote in the comments section.
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Another person said: “This is very relatable. Water damage in any house is expensive, destructive and at times, traumatic.”
While another shared: “There is something so poignant about watching the viscount roll up his sleeves and clean gutters, mop floors and so on. Such a snapshot of the relationship between the modern aristocracy and their grand houses.
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