What's next for Beaulieu, one of the founding estates of the stately homes industry? This week's Great Estates – on trusts, titles and being scions of the Dukes of Buccleuch with Lord Montagu, whose very famous father led the charge in more ways than one www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/da4bf84...

What's next for Beaulieu, one of the founding estates of the stately homes industry? This week's Great Estates – on trusts, titles and being scions of the Dukes of Buccleuch with Lord Montagu, whose very famous father led the charge in more ways than one www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/da4bf84...

Absolutely deeelighted to have contributed to this lovely bit on Good Friday's The World Tonight about the hereditary peers in the House of Lords – from 18 mins here www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Baffled by the NYT/AI book review story. The whole point of having such a lovely job as reviewing books that you get sent, for free, is that it is a Nice Job? Fun, even. I don’t even use AI to transcribe interviews. It’s my job – an amazing one! Why use AI to ruin something so inherently excellent?

This week's Great Estates is on Euston Hall and the Duke and Duchess of Grafton, their first interview of this kind. Ft the duke's approach to being ducal today, his vinyl decks alongside the Reynolds in the drawing room, and what to do with the rows of Van Dycks www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/bb94f26...

Love getting comments like this.... keep them coming ragers, it really lifts the spirits that you enjoyed the episode with @brushingboots.bsky.social . Thanks @finch4077.bsky.social Listen to the episode here: pod.fo/e/3a194b

This week's Great Estates is on Euston Hall and the Duke and Duchess of Grafton, their first interview of this kind. Ft the duke's approach to being ducal today, his vinyl decks alongside the Reynolds in the drawing room, and what to do with the rows of Van Dycks www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/bb94f26...

This is (possibly) very niche but today I have had to put my password into Who's Who/the DNB FIVE SEPARATE TIMES. 'We're making improvements to make your access smoother,' says Who's Who. Come again?

Today is the sort of day where I could really do with talking to AJP Taylor

An enjoyable romp in newspaper archives produces a favourite of the genre: ‘The duke’s long life was not eventful save for his active service in the Crimean War'. [He died aged 97 in 1918 – what a world he experienced.]

This week's Great Estates is on Rousham, one of the most beautiful places in the land – which is being threatened by a proposed new town. Just how special does a place have to be to be sacred? 'For the UK,' says the artist Francis Hamel, 'this is Taj Mahal level' www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/d5980be...

This week's Great Estates is on Rousham, one of the most beautiful places in the land – which is being threatened by a proposed new town. Just how special does a place have to be to be sacred? 'For the UK,' says the artist Francis Hamel, 'this is Taj Mahal level' www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/d5980be...

I’m back on Times Radio in a few minutes talking about the House of Lords again! This time with @harrywallop.co.uk!

Looking forward to talking to Jon Harvey tonight on Times Radio about the hereditary peers and the House of Lords!! In a few mins hopefully, do tune in!

Just had cause to sing the 'je suis fatigue' French verbs song down a voicenote and well, I am back in 2002

Very happy to have helped Alice Cockerell with this piece in the Spectator US, in which she kindly plugs my book HEIRS AND GRACES spectator.com/article/uppe...

🚨 THIS WEEK🚨 Aristocratic power today isn’t in Parliament — it’s in land and legacy. 🌿🏛️ Hear @brushingboots.bsky.social break it down on History Rage. 🎧 Listen : pod.fo/e/3a194b #HistoryRage #SoftPower #Aristocracy #Podcast

I wrote about the confrontingly honest and rather brave Cavenagh-Mainwaring family of Whitmore Hall in Staffordshire who are grappling with 940 years of history and how to manage that legacy, with a 17-year-old future heiress in tow www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/80b6d36...

🚨 THIS WEEK 🚨 @brushingboots.bsky.social unpacks Britain’s upper class today 🏰📘 From shrinking estates to hereditary peers & the National Trust’s influence, with Wentworth Woodhouse as a study of decline and survival. 🎧 Listen: shows.acast.com/hist... #History #Podcast #BritishHistory

This was the BEST podcast to do, I loved it! And you can listen now! It is really worth your time if I may say

Delighted to see that comrade @henrymance.ft.com had just as much fun interviewing Benjy Mancroft for the FT as I did for my book. He is a 10/10 lunch date www.ft.com/content/ab4d...

It’s World Book Day and I am off to talk to my old school about writing books! Why not treat yourself to my book, HEIRS AND GRACES? The paperback is available to preorder now, but if you can’t wait pick up the hardback. It is SUCH good value and it’ll come tomorrow www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...

This week's Great Estates is on Knepp – yes, the rewilding one – and Ned Burrell, who speaks cogently about his inheritance, about farming and about food security. It would be easy to be romantic about Knepp but he's pragmatic. It's a great piece if I may say www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/435f14a...

This week's Great Estates is on Knepp – yes, the rewilding one – and Ned Burrell, who speaks cogently about his inheritance, about farming and about food security. It would be easy to be romantic about Knepp but he's pragmatic. It's a great piece if I may say www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/435f14a...

Found a pile of unused blueys, presumably deriving from my dad’s last tour of the Middle East. Would they still work? Have I time travelled to early 2000s postage rates?

A great day to discover that I have the same coat as Nigel Farage (probably more than one, to be fair)

More essential castle journalism from me – featuring Raby Castle and Lord Barnard’s array of spare rooms containing cupboards of OE ties still covered in food, broken kettles, loos and computers and another full of generations of horsehair mattresses... bonkers www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/40fd676...

This week's Great Estates is on Castle Leslie, one of the last big houses in Ireland still owned by its founding family – with a remarkable woman at the helm, Sammy Leslie, whose stories about life on the border during the Troubles and beyond utterly fascinated me www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/dff8810...

I tell you what’s humbling, doing a spin session at the gym with the Olympic mountaineering on the tv in front

Tony Blair: “I don’t know why anyone would be interested in doing a programme on me” Also Tony Blair: allows Channel 4 to broadcast a three-part programme on him Cool

More essential castle journalism from me – featuring Raby Castle and Lord Barnard’s array of spare rooms containing cupboards of OE ties still covered in food, broken kettles, loos and computers and another full of generations of horsehair mattresses... bonkers www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/40fd676...

This week's Great Estates is on Castle Leslie, one of the last big houses in Ireland still owned by its founding family – with a remarkable woman at the helm, Sammy Leslie, whose stories about life on the border during the Troubles and beyond utterly fascinated me www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/dff8810...

There's nothing like the village WhatsApp when a utility goes down. Today, water – which feels highly ironic given how much of it is coming out of the sky

Spending my day, emotionally and textually, in 1920s Ireland, among the republicans burning down the big houses, and this seems a much more dignified place to be than today's world

The PM says how Mandy ‘lied repeatedly to my team when asked about his relationship with Epstein’, that 'what was not known' was 'the sheer depth' of it. But surely any association with him whatsoever – given that this was well known – ought to have disqualified him. Am I missing something?

She rather moved me with the way she talked about the estates – that they overwhelmed her, that dealing with 700 years of history at Bodorgan was just too, too much, that it stifled her creativity. And then Bird fixed it all. It's a lovely story if I may say www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/28cb19d...

Plenty said it would never happen – that the Meyricks would talk about Bodorgan, Hinton Admiral and Bournemouth. Well, they have now. Great Estates this week is with the very thoughtful and quite remarkable Candida Meyrick, accompanied by her Harris hawk, Bird www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/28cb19d...

Plenty said it would never happen – that the Meyricks would talk about Bodorgan, Hinton Admiral and Bournemouth. Well, they have now. Great Estates this week is with the very thoughtful and quite remarkable Candida Meyrick, accompanied by her Harris hawk, Bird www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/28cb19d...

There’s nothing like believing your train is 20 minutes later than it actually is until the moment you get in the car, 15 minutes away, to give a bit of vim to a Wednesday morning

This week’s Great Estates is on Hutton-in-the-Forest and Lord Inglewood who was definitely one of my most thoughtful interviewees of 2025, a good egg who talks sense on a lot of things – particularly on Lords reform, on which he is utterly clear-eyed. Do read it! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ce233e6...

This week’s Great Estates is on Hutton-in-the-Forest and Lord Inglewood who was definitely one of my most thoughtful interviewees of 2025, a good egg who talks sense on a lot of things – particularly on Lords reform, on which he is utterly clear-eyed. Do read it! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ce233e6...

I am super excited to say that my book HEIRS AND GRACES will be published in paperback on 11 June and here is the cover! I can only hope to be as cool as Donough Inchiquin! It remains available to buy in hardback/audio/ebook and you can pre-order the paperback now! www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...

I am super excited to say that my book HEIRS AND GRACES will be published in paperback on 11 June and here is the cover! I can only hope to be as cool as Donough Inchiquin! It remains available to buy in hardback/audio/ebook and you can pre-order the paperback now! www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...

Enjoying my quarterly-ish browse of FixMyStreet and particularly the effort that one near-ish neighbour has gone to in reporting a sunken manhole lid with five photographs featuring a giant spirit level and a metal tape measure. Hell hath no fury like a man with a noisy metal plate outside his house

ICYMI my profile of England’s newest cardinal, Timothy Radcliffe, which I don’t mind saying that I am rather pleased with – on women in the Catholic Church, his life as a Dominican and how despite it he fell in love with a woman, on ministering to men with HIV and much more

Ahead of this week’s extraordinary consistory at the Vatican, I went to Oxford to interview ‘don’t call me Cardinal’ Timothy Radcliffe: on women’s ordination, on ministering to those with HIV, what the Pope is like and whether he voted for himself at conclave www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6ea3425...

What's so sad about when people get totally het up about one single line in a piece is that they miss the genuinely amazing bits. I'm feeling generous so this is one of them – the 3rd Lord Leconfield talking to the late Pamela Leconfield. Just outstanding. God bless the aristocracy, eh

A lot of people in the comments – which I have been reading with an amused smile and responding to, killing their fury with abject kindness – seem to have got totally the wrong end of the stick about him but oh well!! My job is so great! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...

It's a happy new year and a very happy new Great Estates which this week is at mighty Petworth with the wonderful Max Egremont who I had a lovely time with despite Thameslink's best efforts. Yes he wants to pay more tax! No he's not virtue signalling! He's great! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...

It's a happy new year and a very happy new Great Estates which this week is at mighty Petworth with the wonderful Max Egremont who I had a lovely time with despite Thameslink's best efforts. Yes he wants to pay more tax! No he's not virtue signalling! He's great! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...