A millionaire property magnate is said to be “distraught” at having to sell his £42 million country estate in order to meet his wife’s divorce settlement.
65 year-old Maurice Robson inherited Kiddington Hall in Oxfordshire – as well as a 17th-century castle in
Scotland
– from his father, Sir Lawrence Robson, in 1982, who had bought the stately home for £115,000 in 1950.
The estate was built in 1673 and comes complete with the
village
of
Nester Kiddington
and 39 properties alongside the hall itself, including 18 houses, numerous farm buildings and a 6,000 sq ft office block. Stables, tennis courts and a swimming pool can also be found in the ground.
The owner, described as “eccentric” by neighbours, has declined to comment on the sale of the house or his divorce from his wife of 24 years, Chloe Robson.
Last week, she spoke out, saying: “My husband would like to paint the picture that we are selling the property because of the divorce. It would have been sold anyway because it is not financially viable.”
Although the estate generates a steady annual income of £437,000, a friend of the owner told The Times newspaper that “he has probably run out of cash.”
Kiddington Hall is reportedly the most expensive country home to be put on the open market for five years. In 2004, the Easton Neston estate in Northamptonshire went on sale for £50 million, but failed to attract a buyer and subsequently had to be split up and sold off separately.
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