MANSION FOR £7

Hokitika Guardian, 22 February 1933, Page 3

MANSION FOR £7

BUYER’S. WHITE ELEPHANT,

GLAD TO GIVE IT BACK

Imagine a stately mansion in one of the best residential parts of Nottingham being sold for £7 and the owner then having to give it away again, because the property was useless to him. Tide*, is (the real-life comedy that has just been enacted around, St. Heßer's, the former residence of the late Lord Trent—.founder of Boots,’ tlie chemists—in Park, Nottingham. Ten years ago, Lord and Lady Trent left the city to live in Jersey, and after Ifier husband’s-death the-. Dowager Lady Trent submitted the premises to auction.

Mr S. WeigHtman, who keeps ,a smal] general -shop at Wilford, a village just optside Nottingham, “for a bjt of fnn,” started the bidding for f>t. Heller’s himself—and in a few seconds founu

it knocked down to him’ for £7. He learnelT'wie reason why afterwards. Th e ground rent was £ll6 a year and the lease had over 50 yeans to run.

Mr Weight man’s project to convert the mansion into flats was vetoed by the iDuke of Newcastle, the ground landlord. 'The village shopkeeper war, thus faced with the prospect •of being ruined by a white elephant. The Dowager Lady Trent finally came to the shopkeeper’s rescue. Realising that if the owner defaulted, the responsibility for finding the money was hers, she agreed to take St. Helier’a back.

This means that she will go on pay-: i:ng £2 5s a week for an empty (house that nobody wants, although the property is worth at least £5,000.

Meanwhile, Mr Weigbtman is ruefully contemplating the fact that his venture into real estate cost him £7 fo r nothing—and very nearly involved him'in ruin.