If Poundbury, Charles’s model town in Dorset, is the King’s homage to classical architecture and urban planning, Dumfries House and the surrounding estate in Ayrshire is a showcase for his vision of the countryside.
Over 2,000 organic acres of woodland, farmland and elaborately planted gardens, Charles is reviving country crafts that have long died out elsewhere in Britain – like thatching and blacksmithing.
And we’ll get a glimpse of Charles’s back-to-the-future vision of the countryside on this weekend’s Countryfile, the BBC‘s Sunday evening rural magazine show.
Presenter Matt Baker will help carry out health checks on the Royal livestock.
Charles, then Prince of Wales, takes part in the National Hedgelaying Championship at Tetbury, near his Highgrove home. Hedgelaying is said to be ‘almost an obsession’ for the King
Dumfries House and the surrounding estate sums up King Charles’s vision of rural life
Countryfile presenter Matt Baker will help carry out health checks on the livestock in this Sunday’s show
The show feature a green energy project to refurbish wind turbines and take a look at a tea dance on the estate that is putting the spring back in locals’ steps by boosting mental and physical health.
And presenter Charlotte Smith will visit the estate’s craft workshop to put the finishing touches to a bird-hide made from an ash tree before trying her hand at making a stained-glass window using techniques dating back to medieval times.
Charles has long demonstrated a commitment to rural life as another Countryfile presenter, Adam Henson, explains:
‘If anyone doubts that he actually gets his hands dirty, I can vouch for his willingness to get stuck in to the most unglamorous of chores,’ he writes on the Countryfile website.
‘I’ve seen him at work in the fields near his Gloucestershire home, billhook in one hand and a hedging axe in the other. Hedgelaying is almost an obsession with the monarch and his enthusiasm for the rural skill has rubbed off on others.
‘I got a sense of that royal dedication to the fundamentals of farm life when, as Prince of Wales, Charles paid an official visit to the Cotswold Park Farm in 2020. Despite the chill wind and the sudden showers, he took his time inspecting the livestock paddocks, was particularly interested in our Suffolk Punch mare Victoria, and looked every inch the seasoned stockman when he came nose-to-snout with one of our Old Spots sows and found himself surrounded by her litter of piglets.’
As Prince of Wales, Charles saved Dumfries House from falling into disrepair by leading a dramatic £45million rescue deal in 2007 to buy it from a relative of the elderly dowager Marchioness of Bute.
It is thought his charitable foundation – with the help of wealthy donors – has ploughed in around £45million more to restore the 18th-century stately home and its 2,000 acres to its former glory.
One of the more colourful backers is Christine Chiu, the millionaire co-owner of a plastic surgery business in America and star of the Netflix series Bling Empire.
Now the ambitious renovation programme is complete, Dumfries House is hoping to regenerate the local economy by providing training and education courses on crafts and sustainable living.
There is an organic farm, which is home to Cröllwitzer turkeys, Scots Grey chickens and other rare-breeds; a garden schoolroom to teach children about growing fruit and vegetables; and even a wellness centre offering homeopathy and fertility courses through GP referrals, dubbed ‘the Royal NHS’.
It was recently reported that its Health and Fertility Centre was enjoying remarkable success with half of the couples attending eventually able to conceive.
Sixteen years on from the rescue deal, the estate is teeming with otters, barn owls, buzzards, sparrowhawks, herons, moorhen, hare and deer, and Hamza heard birdsong from chaffinches, nuthatch and starling filling the woodland air.
There is nothing much rural about wealthy American donor Christine Chiu, but she has helped establish the Health and Wellbeing Centre at Dumfries House
Charles and Camilla, both in tartan, visit Dumfries House, Ayreshire, in 2021
Countryfile presenter, Adam Henson has written about Charles’s commitment to rural life
In the south-facing walled garden, where fruit trees and grapevines are thriving, Hamza introduced hedgehogs from the local Wildlife Rescue Centre, who will keep the slugs and snails away from the Royal lettuces.
Elsewhere in the King’s bucolic estate, there is an adventure playground with treehouses and rope bridges, a giant maze, an upmarket hotel called the Lodge, and the Belvedere summer house personally designed by Charles himself – complete with gargoyles.
A muddy bog has been transformed into an arboretum with native trees, and an old laundry has become a school for artists.
But it’s in the organic vegetable garden where Charles has put perhaps his most idiosyncratic stamp on things. The pesticide-free beds have been cultivated in the shape of the Union Flag.
- Countryfile, Sunday August 6, 7.00pm BBC1
