The Independent (UK): They have withstood centuries of war and decay and the fluctuating fortunes of their once super-wealthy owners, but now Britain's stately homes face a potentially more destructive force: climate change. The National Trust says at least seven historic stately homes – some up to 600 years old – have been damaged by climate-change-related incidents, such as flooding, over the past five years, with repair costs running into millions of pounds.These include 300-year-old Calke Abbey in Derbyshire, The Vyne, a 16th-century house in Hampshire, and Coughton Court, a Tudor stately home in Warwickshire, which were all damaged by flooding in 2007.
Last year heavy rainfall caused extensive damage to Cragside, a unique Victorian manor house in Northumberland built in 1870. It was the first building in the world to use hydroelectricity, and all the house's power comes from a turbine fed by a nearby stream.
Last year's heavy rainfall flooded the newly refurbished pump house, and left the ground floor under water, damaging the iron fireplaces and an early billiard table, which took months to dry out.
Floods have also destroyed some of the Trust's historic gardens – such as Westbury Court, on the River Severn, which was wiped out by salt water – as well as causing extensive damage to the Cornish village of Boscastle, which the Trust administers, in 2004. Warmer weather also means more insects, as well as algae in artificial lakes, such as at Stourhead in Wiltshire, where a mirror-like surface designed to reflect the house became a soupy sludge in 2006. Drought also means traditional plants will no longer grow….
Coughton Court, shot by Niki Walton, Wikimedia Commons, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License
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