‘Keep the momentum going'

The new Historic Houses president on leaky roofs, lobbying Government and VAT

- Martha Lytton Cobbold

KNEBWORTH HOUSE presents an architectural conundrum. The building is Tudor, yet bats and gargoyles stare from a stucco façade crowned with turrets and battlements. The additions were made in about 1813 by Elizabeth Bulmer-Lytton, with further alterations by her son, Edward, the novelist, of ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ fame. Inside, the house is deceptively shallow, belying the grand exterior. ‘There used to be four wings,’ explains the Hon Martha Lytton Cobbold, ‘but Elizabeth demolished three sides, to simplify the house and make it more manageable. It was a survival thing.’

As châtelaine of Knebworth since 2000, Mrs Lytton Cobbold is no stranger to tough decisions. She has been preoccupied with preventing the masonry from collapsing. She shows me around, apologising for the scaffolding, focusing not so much on the splendours of the house (the Tudor hall, the re-created grand staircase, the library with its fake-bookcase doors, the Queen Elizabeth Room, which has featured in several films) as on water damage, floating chimneys and cracks in the walls. ‘The north-west turret is twisting away from the underlying brick, causing 4in cracks to ricochet right through the building,’ she explains. ‘All the [leaded] windows had to be replaced and the stonework rebuilt. But we haven’t yet redone the gaps in the floorboards. It’s a work in progress.’