Upping His Game

The Holkham owner on learning to love shooting and hopes for the countryside post-Brexit

- Paula Lester

LORD LEICESTER doesn’t like smiling for photographs—he’s been selfconscious since having a brace as a teenager. Perched on the edge of a sofa in the family kitchen, dining and sitting room at Holkham Hall, he relaxes when his Irish terrier, Jupiter, springer spaniels scampi and shrimp and wirehaired dachshund Frank inveigle their way into the shot.

Converted from the audit room when Tom, wife, Polly, and their four children (Lady Hermione, 18, Lady Juno, 17, Lady Elizabeth, 11, and Viscount [Edward] coke, 13) moved into the 18th-century house in 2007, the light and airy room—white walls, brightly upholstered furniture and gigantic kitchen island—looks more like a spread from a hip interiors magazine than a page in a country-house guidebook.

‘We put a lot of thought into how we would live here,’ says Tom, as he tucks into smoked salmon and poached egg with toasted slices of Polly’s homemade sourdough bread after an early-morning Pilates class in Holkham village.

Like his ancestors, Tom, 52, has always done things a little differently. Before the 5th Earl died in 1976, without a son and heir, Tom’s grandfather, Anthony, agreed to take on the title, but remained in south Africa, instead sending his eldest son, Edward, to learn how to run the great estate before his uncle’s demise.

With 25,000 acres surrounding an imposing Palladian masterpiece—the 1st Earl and architect William Kent’s vision of a roman villa—Holkham has always loomed large on the north Norfolk coast. ‘Everybody says “you must feel this great burden of responsibility”, but my father and I never felt like that. It’s just something we knew we were going to do.’