How we are funded

The story of The West Horsley Place Trust began in 2014 when Bamber and Christina Gascoigne unexpectedly inherited West Horsley Place from Bamber's aunt, Mary, Duchess of Roxburghe.

In 2015 they founded a charity, the Mary Roxburghe Trust (now known as the West Horsley Place Trust), with three objectives – restoration of the Grade I listed house and its related Grade II listed buildings, the teaching of crafts of all kinds and the encouragement of the performing arts. As part of this great philanthropic and artistic endeavour, they gifted the house, the entire estate and £5.35 million from the proceeds of three Sotheby’s sales of Mary, Duchess of Roxburghe’s possessions to this charity.

This generous gift has allowed the West Horsley Place Trust to carry out the most urgent repairs to West Horsley Place to enable us to open to the public and to create a reserve fund and to cover the charity's operating costs until we have carried out the works needed to become financially sustainable. 

The next phase of repairs and restoration of the House, Place Farm and Estate will be funded through generous charitable donations from individuals, charitable trusts and foundations, corporate partners and gifts in Wills. 

Find out more about our future plans for West Horsley Place