No potential buyers so far for Cowdray family seat

Lord Cowdray told the Observer last May he was leaving the family seat which had been the Pearson home for a century and returning to Greenhill at Fernhurst where he and his wife Marina lived before he inherited the title in 1995.

He wanted to find a business partner to convert the 16-bedroomed Cowdray Park House into a hotel, spa and conference centre, giving a lengthy lease to a partner and retaining some control over the house.

But a hotelier was not forthcoming and he decided the best option was to sell.

The house went on the market with 110 acres of the estate’s 16,000 acres including the practice ground where polo was first played on the estate as well as landscaped gardens, two lakes, pony paddocks, pasture and woodland, three pairs of cottages, inside and outside swimming pools and four stable-block flats.

Now Lord Cowdray has told Daily Mail columnist Richard Kay: “We will renew efforts to sell in the spring.”

And art connoisseurs hoping to pick up treasures from Cowdray Park House, which is crammed full of artworks, will have to wait.

Lord Cowdray said the family would be keeping much of the contents of the house: “But we’re getting Christie’s to auction some things, including the huge Gainsboroughs.

“We just won’t have a tall enough room in the new place.”