The clever owner of a large Tudor estate erected solar panels to reduce his escalating energy costs, which were costing him £50,000 annually.
Giles Keating, an economist, purchased Athelhampton House in Dorset in 2019 and, in an effort to become carbon neutral, replaced all of the oil burners, gas stoves, and boilers with renewable energy sources.
On the 500-year-old estate, permission was obtained for the construction of 400 solar panels and the installation of ground-source heat pumps.
The Grade I-listed stately mansion, which is also a well-liked tourist destination and was a setting for the Michael Caine movie Sleuth, would have had to either raise its entrance prices or shut to the general public due to out-of-control energy costs.
The 50-room Athelhampton House served as the inspiration for the setting of Thomas Hardy’s famous book Far From the Madding Crowd and was referenced in the Doomsday Book.
The owners of the magnificent mansion, which lacks double glazing, “burned through oil” attempting to heat it before installing the renewable technology.
The 20-acre property’s solar panels, which are hidden by trees, generate extra energy that is nightly stored in Tesla batteries.
Modern pumps circulate heat throughout the structure while absorbing heat from the earth and the environment.
Our annual carbon emissions from energy consumption were 100 tonnes, according to Mr. Keating, a billionaire economist, but they are now nil.
“That’s like preventing 2,400 automobile trips back and forth from London to Bournemouth annually.”
“Athelhampton House contains around 50 rooms, a stable with a restaurant, a vacation home, and offices. Without renewable energy, the energy cost would be well over £50,000 a year, but with it, it’s almost $0.”
The Dorset Council had to get them planning approval before they could install the required equipment.
There were no issues with the modifications as long as they were minor and did not obviously modify the Grade I-listed building and grounds.
The 50-room Athelhampton House served as the model for the setting of Thomas Hardy’s famous book Far From the Madding Crowd and was referenced in the Doomsday Book.
The property’s manager, Owen Davies, said that they would have been obliged to significantly raise admission costs for the general public absent the use of green energy.
If we hadn’t switched to renewable energy, he said, “I suppose we would have been staring down a gun’s barrel.”
We decided to become more ecologically friendly, so we got rid of our gas and oil stoves.
The insulation was so poor that, by using that fuel, we were essentially attempting to warm the whole earth.
“When we were paying for petrol, a unit cost around 19p, but it now costs 45p.”
I believe that Mr. Keating was well aware of the fact that energy was quickly turning into a precious commodity even in 2019.
“It is a great blessing for me to run the estate without having to worry about the value increasing.”
In that regard, the choice was excellent; we were quite lucky.
“What renewable energy is capable of is really wonderful, and the government has to do more to promote it,”
Sir William Martyn, the Lord Mayor of London in 1485, constructed the Tudor manor house at Athelhampton during the reign of Henry VII.
Thomas Hardy began working on it in the Victorian era as an apprentice stonemason under an architect.
He utilised the magnificent manor house as Weatherbury Farm, the home of the main character Bathsheba, in his 1874 book Far From the Madding Crowd.