The colonial-style villa on the Royal Westmoreland estate on the island’s west coast has a vast open-plan kitchen, dining room and sitting room on the first floor with french windows opening on to a wide balcony. The view of the tenth tee of the championship golf course, clubhouse and the Caribbean beyond is breathtaking. Downstairs are two double bedrooms, each with its own bathroom and terrace.

Gatting, below, a keen golfer with a handicap of ten, bought the villa in 1998 shortly before he retired from the game. “I had had a testimonial and I used the money from that to buy it,” says Gatting, 48. “I love Barbados and the people and this seemed a great investment proposition because they have a rental scheme. Also it has probably the best golf course on the island.”

He planned to go on holiday with his wife, Elaine, 46, and sons Andrew, 22, and James, 19, as often as could be. But it has not worked. “I do not go enough,” he says. “The kids go to work now and I do not get time. Now we just go once a year in March for two or three weeks. Perhaps in five or six years we will go more often.”

He is busier now than he was in his playing days. “I work for npower (the Test match sponsor) as an ambassador . . . I do a bit for Test Match Special; I do a bit for Radio Five Live; and I write for The Observer sometimes,” says Gatting, whose London home is the aptly named Boundary Cottage beside Enfield Cricket Club. “I am president of the Lord’s Taverners and the Professional Cricketers ’ Association and I am on the MCC committee. I also work for a company called Grand Cru Travel on overseas tours.”

When he is on holiday he tries to put cricket out of his mind, although, with Sir Garry Sobers a regular in the clubhouse at Royal Westmoreland, it must be hard.

“It is a great place and I am really able to relax there,” he says. “In the evening we open all the doors, listen to some music and just chill out with a rum and Coke. But if we want a bit of fun and dancing, Holetown is just a three-minute cab ride down the road.”

Gatting loves food and he is a huge fan of the island’s fresh fish markets. “I love to cook,” he says. “They have lovely big tiger prawns here and I shuffle a few up with a bit of onion, some peppers and a bit of Worcester Sauce and that is a meal. With a glass of white wine it is perfect.”

The golf course is probably the best on the island and Ian Woosnam, Europe’s next Ryder Cup captain, has a villa on the estate and is a regular on the course and its vast practice ground.

“It is a hell of a course,” says Gatting. “I play first thing in the morning because in the afternoon it gets very windy, which creates much more of a challenge. The tenth is a horrendous hole to play off the back tees, especially if you have got the wind howling at you.”

Royal Westmoreland, which also has tennis courts, a restaurant, gym and pool, has a chequered past. It was developed ten years ago as a heavily guarded hideaway for the rich and famous. But as the years went by standards slipped, maintenance work went undone and promises of improvements were broken. Last year, it was sold to John Morphet, a Cumbrian caravan park magnate, for £53 million. In December work is expected to start on nine extra holes . Improvements in the past year have lifted values on the estate. Two years ago, a villa similar to Gatting’s would have fetched £150,000 — today the figure is £550,000. A seven-bedroom detached villa with views of sea and fairways and its own pool is on the market for £4.3 million.

Rents are good and Gatting’s villa can earn between £250 a day in the low season and £800 a day during the peak Christmas and new year period.

Gatting may soon have another cricketing neighbour because Marcus Trescothick, the England and Somerset left-hander, has reserved a villa in a new phase of the estate where prices start at £665,000. “Nowadays, players can pay that sort of money straight away,” says Gatting, whose work for the Professional Cricketers’ Association improved players’ pay dramatically. “They are on about £400,000 a year now, but having won the Ashes they should get huge bonuses.”

www.royalwestmoreland.com

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