Rhostyllen.com

The following article is taken from Private Eye magazine published 14:09:07. They do make a slight error stating that Rhostyllen is in Flint and not Wrecsam, but they also ask some very interesting questions. Happy reading!

When Philip Yorke, the last squire of Erddig, left his house to the National Trust in 1973, it was one of the most generous gifts ever made to the trust.

Yorke not only gave a great Georgian house and its wooded park to be enjoyed by a wider public; he also left some 2,000 acres of land near Wrexham in Flintshire. Sixty-three acres of this were sold for almost £1m to provide an endowment, while compensation from the National Coal Board for mining subsidence under the property brought in £120,000 for repairs and restoration. Yorke had inherited the estate in 1966 and devoted his last years to securing its future. Erddig opened to the public in 1977 and he died the following year.

Erddig is not just handsome architecture; it is very special because the Yorke family threw little or nothing away and resisted the arrival of electricity, gas and mains water until well into the 20th century. It is also remarkable for the wealth of portraits of servants as well as members of the family preserved in the house. Because it is a unique family home, fully preserved, it has always been popular and, by one estimate, is the favourite ’stately home’ in Britain after Chatsworth, attracting about 350,000 visitors a year.

So it’s surprising the trust claims the endowment at Erddig was insufficient to maintain the place and that, to deal with a £15m deficit, it wants to sell another 20 acres next to the village of Rhostyllen for a housing development. What may or may not be surprising are the tactics the trust is using to achieve this potentially lucrative development.

The trust soon fell out with Philip Yorke, who only agreed to the initial sale of land reluctantly. He left the land to the trust in perpetuity ‘for the benefit of local people’ and did not want any more land to be built on. Locals recall a signed document by Squire Yorke stating as much, but the trust seems unable to find it.

Originally the National Trust proposed to build 140 houses - and no blocks of flats - next to Rhostyllen in ‘an exemplary development of sustainable new homes, which will integrate with the surrounding environment’. But the application suddenly increased to 223 dwellings - including 68 flats; 55 of which (some 25 percent) will be affordable housing to be built in partnership with Cymdeithas Tai Clwyd. Locals feel the scale of the development grossly exceeds local needs; and nor are they impressed by the trust’s claim to have conducted ‘consultations’ rather than presentations.

Some tenants who are obstacles to the development have had their tenancies abruptly terminated. One, who ran Hafod Farm as a riding school for 30 years, complained of ‘underhand’ behaviour after the lease was not renewed. It emerged that this was so the buildings could be let to another farmer whose land had had to be purchased by the trust for the proposed development.

What is clear is that the National Trust is trying to cash in on the housing boom around Wrexham and the houses will be bought by people who will commute from north-west England, so creating a social divide. Indeed, locals have been infuriated by an advertisement for the houses ‘coming soon’ issued by the developers - the Eye’s old friends Countryside Properties, of Brentwood, Essex - even though planning permission has yet to be granted by Wrexham borough council. To add insult to injury, it was stated that Rhostyllen was in comfortable, wealthy, smug Cheshire when it is in fact in Flint and in Wales. No wonder the trust now faces strenuous opposition from the local community group, Cymuned.

Before the National Trust became so patrician and so involved with aristocratic country seats, it was primarily concerned with protecting landscape from development. It cannot be healthy now to have a local community campaigning under the slogan ‘Don’t Trust the National Trust’. But the trust’s ethos is now determined in a modern office block in Swindon where the expensive and high-powered chief executive Fiona Reynolds presides over endless restructurings and management plans (Eyes passim). The real question is: how did an estate whose gift was described by James Lees-Milne as ‘one of the most splendid acts of generosity in all the years I have been associated with the National Trust’ come to be run at a loss? Where did the money go?