Wealthy English aristocrats insisting on their relevance in modern society | 60 Minutes Australia

is nothing sacred the Brits have finally had enough of being lauded over by the aristocracy the government's giving the hereditary peerage the chop evicting them from those hallowed Halls the House of Lords add to that the high cost of living in a stately home and your lord and ladyships days could be numbered but as history has shown us you can't keep a true blue blood down the land of gentry are sharpening their swords and polishing their armor for one last battle against the barbarians and I should warn you that this story contains scenes of upper-class privilege and moments of sublime eccentricity good to meet a threatened species the dinosaurs of the British class system just irregular suburban homes wear and tear odd Siege you know right and you come in here they once ruled their fiefdoms lording it over the commoners from their Grand Estates now some of them like Francis fulford can barely keep a roof over their heads we had one of those unfortunate Financial accidents in the 19th century in other words I had an ancestor who pissed the money up against the wall probably in some boom like um they may be down on their luck they may be battling for their very existence in the House of Lords but the aristocracy is Alive and Well in modern Britain there's only one way in and that way there you shop the big doors and then you can stand on the battlements and say off to everybody coming who's waving their pitchforks or size or other weapons invasive at you foul mouth full s have owned this as this is for 900 years the lionheart gave three thousand acres of prime land in Devon to Francis fulford the first for services in the Crusades I always say we peaked in about 1485 and we've been on a slippery slope ever since today Francis fulford the 23rd is still here please please along with long-suffering wife kashanda and therefore somewhat unruly children and you are old mother is old money better than human oh definitely of course because oh you've oh you've only just got money we've had it for ages what is the perception of aristocracy but maybe they think we're relics of uh bygone age or maybe they think um we're irrelevant relics or maybe they think we should all be um hung drawn and caught at all look Guillotine or whatever more radical people think so is the class system C to be here in Britain this dumbing down this desire of a champagne socialist to destroy God help wouldn't mind shooting all of them that's going too far there's not don't go far enough right and you come in here look at this the forfeits live in what they call genteel poverty that's what happens when you own an estate worth a cool 30 million pounds that's about 60 million dollars but don't have the money to fix anything or the inclination to tidy up with the there's a rule number junk accumulates to take a take the space available but every wall is loaded with history when your family has spent 900 years killing foreigners in the service of the king there's a lot to pack in this is well it's a bad battle called The Battle of gravity an ancestor of mine used these guns on the math ranks of a French and they killed about 5 000 old Frenchmen which was a great result all round five thousand Frenchmen yeah so start I think the 55 million left [Music] crabs have a few things in common apart from hating the French they have big houses very big houses and they do as they please now it's not every day we have the Llama come through the house well Larry's not an everyday love [Music] nice a woman you'll never meet but truly eccentric lady Chichester I have to ask you some people might say this is just different [Laughter] yes well I can understand they might think that but you know it just seems normal to me he's very gentle very careful with all the ornaments and so on the Chichester family was given its Coat of Arms by Edward the black prince in 1356 for services in battle against yes the French did Fred that's it now 650 years later lady Chichester devotes herself to her large and unusual family give me a charter give me a charter good like Freddy who's willing to shake your hand if bribed with enough Polo mints oh my goodness lady to Chester's First Love though is writing and show jumping she can also do some dressage yes she likes she enjoys anything she's very very intelligent hello Therese hello to raise it seems isn't just any old camel she's a thoroughbred how come you decided to teach her dressage it's something to keep something for her to do to keep her mind active she just doesn't want to be a camel and I feel very bored she's the horses going out she thinks why not me and sure enough with just the minimum of inducement by way of more Polo mince to raise struts her stuff [Music] stop eccentricity is a wonderful thing it's uh we don't all want to be the same dull person doing the same dull thing day in and day out nothing wrong author Jeffrey Archer Lord Archer is a long time champion of the nobility the fact is that you have some loopy Lords loopy Lords who are in a position of power no they're not just because of birth there are no loopy Lords in the house left there are only 93 Aristocrats as you call them uh born to it there's only 93. I know most of them and they're damned hard-working good people and despite the knocking Australian with a chip on both shoulders the truth is that in the past they've contributed a great deal to this being a great country [Music] but in 21st century Britain the aristocracy is under attack prime minister Gordon Brown wants to kick out the last of the daughtery old peers who take their afternoon naps in the House of Lords its members will be elected and the hereditary peers will retire to their Estates this inspired of the need for a little bit of Maintenance it's still quite great yes I know but but actually peeling paint doesn't matter really stamped straw nothing matters along you keep the bloody water out for Francis what really matters is that he hold on to this estate at all costs by far the dark matter so he can pass it down to his eldest son as 22 generations of fulfords have done before him if you think of an estate like a cake it's quite clear you can't cut it up every generation in Fair slices to everybody so um my eldest on Arthur will pretty well scoop the pool and he'll end up living here hopefully and running a little state of estate will be his now your twins yeah and in this day and age as I understand it um you would be equal yeah but Arthur you win yeah I get the entire house it's brilliant you inherit everything no is that a good thing yeah I think it is it means I don't have to go and look for another house Matilda is this a good thing no I mean not become really attached to it and I can't imagine ever having to be about a bit and it not being mine you can understand how your sister feels us I suppose but then everybody else has to move out of their house down there [Music] really off are you a privileged family it's a modern word meaning that I meant to feel guilty about something and I don't feel guilty about anything maybe maybe also it's are you privileged might imply you have a chauffeur all you have about staff is privileged so in that sense we are not privileged more is the pity [Music] now we Colonials wouldn't normally have a hope of joining the aristocracy let's face it it's a club you have to be born into but here's your chance to become Lord of The Manor this manner 30 million dollars worth of country estate and your own title there's a chance that there's an ear in Australia this definitely is the eldest of our family left there in 18 left here in 1820 with the 22 children which he couldn't feed they are out there they've probably been breeding up like rabbits and we've got to trap them down so Benjamin Slade at his wife Kirsten are on the hunt for an heir to their vast family fortune and we're gonna DNA test them are you swabbed a lot yeah oh so if you 've used long lost relative feel free to apply but please no Communists no drug addicts and of course no Frenchman it's a bit like Roo shooting or something you know you've got people who shoot ruse or crocodiles we went out shooting the fridge you don't like the French I gather no no no genetically bred to hate them you know really [Music] but if your DNA scrubs up this could all be yours boy your own Pub yes uh fully licensed with enough guns to fight off an invasion plus all the usual nights in armor stuff and the biggest bed in England this is the King's Room and this bed sleeps seven people no you had seven in there yeah well you know they were up to no good and room to entertain we can do 26 for breakfast here but it's a bit of a squeeze so this is this is how the the Upper Crust lives I think some of them a little bit better than this I'm struggling I'd like to live better I like your kind of struggle this is a struggle there will be families who still have a lot of money and nothing to do but they are dwindling fast nowadays in a modern Britain you can't survive unless you've got a proper job and you work damned hard I don't you think even for one moment young lady that it's more than one percent as for Lord Archer well he's still a very wealthy man with a magnificent apartment overlooking the houses of Parliament but he hasn't sat in the Lord since his conviction for perjury and his stay as a guest of Her Majesty's prisons in 21st century Britain it seems a pier with a colorful past just isn't welcome anymore does that hurt no you don't care no but if the Winds of Change are sweeping through the House of Lords they haven't touched the house of fulford our great thing what we have achieved is we have hung on and if we went back to those times of a 12th century for would have been about five or ten thousand families living in little manners got it over the country and now we're only three or four was left so that's uh an example of a hemorrhaging of families of how families have this bizarre thing of die out or moving on the rest of the world can do as it damn well pleases the fulfords of Devon are doing just fine [Music] I'd say we live pretty happily actually well especially Arthur because get the whole prize at the end and I don't have to do anything to gain it either I know exactly that's sort of the easiest 30 million I'll make in my life hello I'm Nikki McKenzie thanks for watching 60 Minutes Australia subscribe to our Channel now for brand new stories and exclusive Clips every week don't miss out on our extra minute segments and full episodes of 60 Minutes on ninenow.com and the nine Now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

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Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Tom Steinfort, 60Mins, Amelia Adams, news, world news, news australia, investigative journalism, 60 minutes australia youtube, 60 minutes youtube, 60 minutes episodes, 60 minutes australia episodes, 60 minutes australia, 60 minutes, british, united kingdom, aristocracy, lords, ladies, lordship, landed aristocracy, old money, privilege, land title, british upper class, wealth, hereditary, inheritance

Id: KNGIyUnLX_0

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 10 2023