What was your first home?
A farmhouse on the Welsh border. We did bed and breakfast and my job, aged seven, was to greet people at the door.
Because we were letting people into our home my mum got me to scan them then say, “Yes, we have a room” or, “Sorry, we’re full.” I’d do the breakfast order of fresh eggs and bacon from the farm then wait on them.
In the kitchen we had an Aga – in the lambing season we put lambs inside that needed rejuvenating. We do farming now and I’m setting up a farm shop. But when we moved into the castle in 2001 it was very different.
Around the kitchen table was where all the big decisions were made about running the farm and for entertaining people. I haven’t got an Aga because our kitchen’s on the first floor which couldn’t take its weight.
Anyway, my children will say I’m a hopeless cook, although they love my roasts, spag bol and lasagne. The heartbeat of a home – generally, not always – comes from the woman, and I hope when people come to Belvoir it feels like a home; and all our guides and volunteers represent us as family.
What was the first house you bought?
I’ve never bought a house. The first I moved into was Crows Farm, a black-and-white farmhouse, when I set up an interior decorating business in Herefordshire.
My father bought it and I shared it with my brother. I made curtains, decorated it, and on Saturday mornings my favourite thing was being on my hands and knees cleaning the floor.
What’s your approach to cleaning now?
The thing I struggle with most is sitting behind a desk and telling people what to do. You have to do a lot of that at Belvoir. What I love most is being practical and it drives me berserk when I see dirty floors.
At the castle we’ve got this wonderful blue velvet carpet as you come in, which I found at a factory shop in Kidderminster.
