The Frances Lincoln-published book tells what it's really like to live in Britain's finest country house.
When Julie Montagu—an American fitness entrepreneur turned reality TV personality—married Luke Montagu, the future 12th Earl of Sandwich, she didn’t just join British nobility; she inherited a centuries-old operational balancing act. Published by Frances Lincoln, her book pulls back the heavy silk curtains of Mapperton House, providing a candid, engaging, and unvarnished account of what it actually takes to run a grand Dorset country estate in the 21st century.
Mapperton is no ordinary home. Voted the "Nation’s Finest Manor House" by Country Life magazine in 2006 (and famous as the principal filming location for the 2015 adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd), the Grade I listed Jacobean manor rests within 15 acres of Grade II* Italianate gardens, descending ponds, an orangery, and expansive wildlands. Most of the book is about the interiors, but there are chapters on the orangery and statuary, the wildlands where beavers live, the park cattle, the pools and summer house and the house across the seasons. Charles William Pike designed the gardens, drawing inspiration for a geometric, Italianate design from Harold Peto.
The text delves into the fascinating lineage of Mapperton. Remarkably, from the 11th century until 1919, the manor passed through only four interconnected families by the female line (Brett, Morgan, Brodrepp, and Compton). The Montagu family acquired the estate in 1955, moving their historic heirlooms and art collection from Hinchingbrooke House, Huntingdon.
Montagu brings her signature energy—honed through Ladies of London, her Smithsonian Channel series An American Aristocrat's Guide to Great Estates, and her YouTube channel American Countess—to the narrative. She dispels the romanticised Downton Abbey myth, laying out the practical realities of managing dry rot, leaky roofs, heating ancient stone rooms, and opening the house, gardens, and 12th-century All Saints’ Church to the public from March through October.
Part personal memoir, part local history lesson, and part architectural homage, this book is a delight for lovers of historic homes and English heritage. Montagu’s outsider-turned-insider perspective makes the immense responsibility of preserving a historical treasure both accessible and deeply captivating.
