Those of you who’ve trawled through my previous reports will notice I rarely post articles on manor houses that have any recent history, or that are in a stop-gap period between uses. In Britain, the majority of stately homes met their end more than a century ago due to a shift in social conditions across the country. Many of their crumbled carcasses still decorate our landscape, over time becoming known as the “lost houses”. Those that survived the mass demolition in the late 19th century became so expensive to maintain that only the likes of the National Trust could entertain the idea of maintaining them as soon as they slipped from the hands of aristocracy. Many like Windlestone have fought on through recent times by finding new purpose in order to avoid falling into ruin. The fact of the matter is that a building of such magnitude has undoubtedly been through tough times before, more often than not whilst waiting for the next lord, businessman and nowadays either property developer or lottery winner to pop along. This estate however tells a story that has somehow managed to accumulate all of these in a littered history that spans just short of 200 years.