Return to Lullingstone Castle on BBC2

Alex: Alex Goldstein, pleased to meet you.

Trevor: Nice to meet you.

Alex: Trevor, who wants to sell up, is showing off his wing of the castle.

Trevor: Let me just show you. On this side, opposite the lake, we’ve got the two floors.

Alex: Another storm is brewing.

Trevor: This road, they created, you see. I mean, this road wasn’t there.

Estate Agent 1: Right.

Trevor: And there was a lovely hedge along here which was 30 feet high, which got cut down by mistake.

Estate Agent 1: By mistake?

Trevor: Yes, a mulberry hedge, lovely, 30-foot high, all the way along here. Come and say hello to Tom. It won’t do any harm.

Alex: The two gentlemen are estate agents from London. Trevor wants to sell up and move as soon as possible, but there is an unresolved issue. The garden that went with the south wing is now part of Tom’s World Garden.

Trevor: I think we do have to get our heads together, you know.

Tom: Okay.

Trevor: I mean, what these gentlemen are doing, which is selling the south wing for me, is going to fall flat on its face if we still, you know, haven’t sorted out all these things that need sorting.

Tom: Yeah, yeah. Hi, great to meet you. Brilliant. I mean, I’m surprised. Yeah.

Alex: In London, Trevor’s top firm of estate agents are discussing the garden problem.

Estate Agent 2: Now, the bit that we do need to think through very carefully is this worry in aspect, in relation to the garden. Do you agree?

Estate Agent 1: Oh, absolutely. You cannot go to market with a problem along those sort of lines.

Estate Agent 2: We must get this agreed with the Hart-Dykes. Marketing that wing without a garden, I mean, I think it would be virtually unsaleable.

Alex: But, with an alternative garden, what can Trevor expect to get for the south wing?

Estate Agent 2: So five bedrooms, two bathrooms, three good reception rooms, what are our thoughts on the guide prices of the whole thing to start with?

Estate Agent 1: Really, it’s in excess of a million.

Estate Agent 2: Offers in excess of a million.

Estate Agent 1: I think it’s definitely got to be that exact figure.

Estate Agent 2: A realistic guide price, and then let the market tell us exactly, really, what it’s worth.

Alex: Trevor’s estate agents have been busy marketing his wing of Lullingstone Castle, which is up for sale. This morning, Trevor’s firm of top estate agents is showing him the fruits of an intensive marketing campaign to find a buyer for the south wing.

Estate Agent 2: You’ll see that we’ve got an advertisement in there at the bottom.

Trevor: Oh, yeah. Oh, there we are. Lovely.

Estate Agent 1: It’s almost a double-impact, really.

Trevor: It catches the eye. Yeah, I think you’re right.

Estate Agent 2: Now, of course, tomorrow, Trevor, we’ve got the weekend “Telegraph”, the full property supplement on Saturday.

Trevor: Right, right.

Estate Agent 2: We’ve got a “Country Life” editorial, may well be today or next week, but early days. Don’t let’s preempt and prejudge it. It think there’s one other point, Trevor, we just thought of. It was just whether it would be worth sending a brochure to the other members who live in the other wings and portions of the Castle.

Trevor: I certainly don’t really want to send one to the Hart-Dykes. They’re not going to move here.

Alex: Meanwhile, the Hart-Dykes’ neighbor in the south wing has something to celebrate. Finally, the legal loose ends are tied up, and Trevor is moving out and saying goodbye to Lullingstone after 30 years.