‘You don't build a medieval manor house with a great hall to sit on your own'

Telegraph

01-06-2025

Charlie Courtenay, 19th Earl of Devon, has been having a clear-out. At his home, Powderham Castle near Exeter, 'up in the attics and roofs there's what we refer to as the 'wild archives',' he says, 'just a bunch of stuff that we never really get to'.
Now the wild archives are no more. Next week Dreweatts auctioneers will sell 209 pieces from the Powderham attics, as well as 172 lots from the Earl of Yarborough's Brocklesby Park in Lincolnshire. It isn't a downsizing sale; more of a consolidation. 'Powderham spends a lot of its time being used for public events, and every time you do that you're lifting and shifting, so it's not nearly as fully furnished as it once was,' says Lord Devon.
The castle is open six days a week, nine months of the year, with a vibrant events calendar. This summer it will host Duran Duran as well as comedian Frank Skinner, food festivals and Shakespearean productions.
This is exactly what it ought to be doing, says Lord Devon. 'You don't build a medieval manor house with a great hall to sit on your own and not see people. You build it for the purpose of entertaining and bringing people together. I'm strongly of the view that Powderham does today what Sir Philip Courtenay intended to do when he built it in the 1390s.'
The auction is an eclectic mix. Lots range from a pocket telescope (est. £80-120) to a George VI coronation chair (est. £300-500), a pair of three-metre tall mahogany and parcel-gilt cabinets (est. £5,000-10,000), and a pair of rare Chinese imperial Qiangjin and Cloisonné sedan chair poles (est. £8,000-12,000).
Lord Devon has long had 'a bit of heartburn around sales'. In August, it will be a decade since he succeeded his father to both the earldom and Powderham, and the same week he will turn 50. With this has come a realisation. 'It's very easy to sit there and do nothing, and hold on to everything like the dragon in Lord of the Rings,' he says.
'But that's not creative. I've done a lot of work retaining stuff and it's time to get my arms around the collection and responsibly manage it. That requires letting some stuff go to make room – and hopefully raise some funds to assist in our programme of works.'
Lord Devon's father Hugh was born in the state bed at Powderham in May 1942, on the night the Luftwaffe bombed Exeter. Since it was wartime, no beacons were lit nor cannons fired in recognition of his arrival, and his mother Venetia was heard to remark: 'poor little heir. No church bells. No fireworks.'
Post-war, Venetia and her husband Christopher Courtenay, 17th Earl of Devon, poured all of their efforts into Powderham. First, they established a finishing school, before in 1960 the house opened to the public, with Powderham's 116-year-old tortoise Timothy in tow with a label attached that read: 'My name is Timothy. I am very old. Please do not pick me up.'
'They were very enterprising,' says Lord Devon of his grandparents. 'I often think that I run their business, which my dad did a great job developing.'
The Devons were totally wedded to their titular county. Christopher never once spoke in the House of Lords in his 63 years as a member, nor did he partake in much of aristocratic society – possibly since his 1939 marriage to Venetia had been preceded by scandal. The pair had met when Christopher was still at prep school, and Venetia was the young bride of his second cousin, Mark Pepys, 6th Earl of Cottenham.
After Venetia attended Christopher's coming-of-age in July 1937, the pair fell in love, and when Mark Cottenham sought a divorce from Venetia, he cited Christopher as a co-respondent.
Following both this, and his experiences in North Africa – where he was shot through his helmet on Christmas Day – Christopher retreated to Devon with what would likely be diagnosed now as PTSD. He pursued a policy of never opening any of his post and, as his stepdaughter Lady Rose Pepys remembered, 'set about becoming an old man,' in his 30s.
Finances were tight. By the time Christopher succeeded his father the Reverend Frederick Courtenay, 16th Earl of Devon, in June 1935, there had been a succession of deaths meaning that Powderham came with triple death duties. The Devons' estate, which had been over 53,000 acres in the 1880s, was severely reduced. Today, it is just 3,500 acres.
The Courtenays' legacy is ancient: they were founding members of the Order of the Garter; fought at Poitiers, Agincourt and Bosworth; and had William of Orange to dinner on the first night of the Glorious Revolution. Lord Devon is the 19th earl dating from the fifth creation in 1553, but his ancestors have been earls of Devon, one way or another, since the 1140s.
When both his father and aunt Lady Kate Watney died within two months of one another in 2015, Lord Devon became not only head of the family but also 'the authority,' he says. 'I was always the one asking the history questions and I thought, 'there's no one I can go to to tell me whether that's right or wrong'. That was a big loss.'
He is also almost the last of the line, only his 15-year-old son Jack, Lord Courtenay, is in line to succeed him. 'Despite being a very long-established title, the earldom of Devon is a very weedy one.'
He feels strongly about his role, and was elected to the House of Lords as a cross-bencher in 2018, becoming the most visible Lord Devon for several generations. 'I had a real interest in what the earldom meant and it wasn't until I got into the Lords and started offering some of the stories in the context of providing perspective to our legislative process that I realised there aren't many of us who are feudal earls with that sort of continuity,' he says.
He believes that part of being a hereditary peer is to have a role in the Lords, though when the remaining hereditaries exit the upper chamber, he will remain a 'flag-waver' for Devon.
'I am fortunate to live in and run a business in the county of which I am the earl,' he says. 'We call Powderham 'the home of Devon'. Just because I'm not able to contribute to the legislative process, there's still that ability to provide a sense of perspective for the country – and a sense of identity for the region.'