Super-rich buying up ‘Downton Abbey estates’ to escape pandemic

Super-rich buying up ‘Downton Abbey estates’ to escape pandemic

The world's super-rich are seeking to escape from coronavirus lockdowns in cities by buying multimillion-pound English country estates to create Downton Abbey lifestyles, complete with butlers, cooks, housekeepers and armies of gardeners.

Estate agents are reporting a surge in sales of vast country estates and former castle properties, which until Covid-19 struck had become increasingly hard to shift as the richest of the rich instead opted to live in luxurious skyscraper penthouses, on tropical islands or superyachts.

Savills, which has 320 staff in a special unit dedicated to such estates, said it had sold – or was on the verge of selling – 21 estates valued at £15m-plus since the first nationwide lockdown in March. For comparison, just one such property sold in the whole of 2019.

Rival high-end estate agents also reported