Research undertaken by Lloyds TSB in 2008 confirmed that, in a sliding housing market, property owners increasingly turn their attention to making home improvements in the hope of either attracting a sale or increasing asset value. For those of us, particularly members of the political class, tempted to emulate John Wemmick in Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’, The Daily Telegraph has provided a couple of useful guides on the cost of maintaining a moat, see:
Telegraph Article 1: Clearing a moat
Telegraph Article 2: Maintaining a moat
In the latter article, Jasper Gerard notes that the late Alan Clark, one time Conservative MP and a junior minister in Thatcher’s Departments of Employment, Trade, and Defense, was forced to sell one of his Degas paintings in the early 1990s to fund repairs to the moat at his Saltwood Castle home in Kent.
So, unless you have the odd unwanted Degas stashed away in the loft, or, better still, open access to tax-payers wallets, you should perhaps restrict your ambitions to a more modest new en-suite.