ENGLISH HERITAGE has been accused of snatching possession of a crumbling mansion from a new owner who was keen to restore it.

Apethorpe Hall, a 15th-century country home where James VI of Scotland dined on his journey to take the Throne as James I of England, is regarded as the most important country house at risk in England. It is being forcibly bought by the State.

Harold Winton, the president of Queens Park Rangers Football Club, owned the aristocratic pile for less than 24 hours before Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, seized it by compulsory purchase order (CPO).

Newly released papers show that English Heritage was secretly advancing a £17 million scheme to take over and repair the house at public expense while knowing that Mr Winton was bidding for it.

In its position as adviser to the Culture Secretary, the heritage organisation urged her to exercise rarely used powers to force the owners to sell. In an unprecedented manoeuvre, the Government waited until the day after Mr Winton exchanged contracts before issuing a CPO to remove the hall from him.

A public inquiry next week will decide whether an Englishman such as Mr Winton can regard his home as his castle, or whether the Government has a right to seize control of important buildings to carry out repairs.

Mr Winton, a cousin of Sir Nicholas Winton, who saved many Jews from the Holocaust, has reacted emotionally, spending sleepless nights pacing his London flat. “This is the sort of thing that happened in Nazi Germany,” he said. “You had a property — you didn’t have a property. It’s a National Socialist policy. If we don’t stand our ground, English Heritage will go on because they are not properly accountable.”

At the heart of the battle is a honey-coloured stone building in the Northamptonshire countryside, where Elizabeth I was entertained and James I and Charles I held hunting expeditions. The house passed through three centuries of Earls of Westmorland from 1624 before being bought by Sir Henry Brassey, the landowner and parliamentarian, in 1904. It became a reform school in 1948. The Brassey family moved into the neighbouring manor house.

Apethorpe Hall fell into disrepair when it was bought in 1983 by Wannis Burweila, the Libyan owner of the World Trade Centre in Athens and many hotels. As the building was consumed by rot, East Northamptonshire Council took formal steps to force repairs. In 1999, it issued a CPO.

Confidential papers show that English Heritage was pressing the Culture Secretary to consider the compulsory purchase of the hall in December 2001. It suggested buying the hall for £1.25 million and repairing it for £17 million, the money to come from a rise in the heritage body’s budget. Meanwhile, Mr Winton led a consortium of businessmen bidding to buy the hall as a property development, preserving its appearance but dividing the residence into five homes. English Heritage wrote to Mr Winton’s bidding team in 2002 demanding a full, credible and acceptable scheme for the repair and proper preservation of the hall. Two working days later, English Heritage wrote to the Culture Secretary recommending compulsory purchase on the ground that there was “no prospect” of such a scheme happening.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport warned Mr Winton’s team that it might proceed with compulsory acquisition unless there was “considerable and satisfactory progress” with repair works at the hall. East Northamptonshire Council agreed a stay on its existing CPO pending the sale of the hall.

The council then gave a written assurance that it would completely withdraw its CPO if the hall was sold. Reassured by this promise, a week later Mr Winton and his colleagues exchanged contracts with Mr Burweila for £1.35 million, informing the Department for Culture by fax. The next day, a draft compulsory purchase order was issued by the Government. The order was served on Mr Burweila by a bailiff in Athens, amid a blaze of publicity. A press release gave the impression that the Government was in the dark about Mr Winton’s plans.

Unable to borrow to invest in the hall because no bank would lend because of the CPO, Mr Winton exercised his rights to call in a planning inspector. This procedure, never before used, will be tried next Tuesday when three weeks of hearings begin.

Running out of patience and money, Mr Winton attempted to find a new owner by placing an advertisement in the Estates Gazette. Simon Karimzadeh, 41, heir to a £120 million trading empire, saw the advertisement and has bought the hall for £750,000 on condition that the CPO is lifted.

HOW THE STATE CAN BUY YOU OUT

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