The late Princess Diana’s younger brother, Earl Spencer, has spoken of his devastation following an arson attack on the historic family home, Althorp estate.
In the early hours of May 28th, a two-storey farmhouse on the property was set alight by unknown assailants, with Charles taking to social media to share the sad news only hours later.
“Stunned to learn that one of the @althorphouse’s farmhouses – fortunately, unoccupied at the time – was apparently burnt down by vandals last night,” he shared to X (formerly known as Twitter).
“So very sad that anyone would think this is a fun thing to do,” he added, before thanking the local fire brigade for doing “their best” to save the farmhouse.
In a follow-up post shared to his Instagram stories, the 61-year-old said that while he was “deeply disturbed” by the fire, he was thankful that the farmhouse was “luckily unoccupied” at the time of the blaze, which took place at approximately 1:30am in the morning.
Althorp Estate’s long-standing head gamekeeper Adey Greeno also took to X following the blaze, writing that it was “so sad.”
“The farmhouse that we lost to a deliberate act of vandalism last night has now had to be razed to the ground for safety reasons. So sad. The world we live in.”
In an official statement released by the Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue, they confirmed that “crews arrived to find a derelict two-story property full on fire.”
“At the height of the fire, four crews from across the service wearing breathing apparatus used hose-reel jets to contain the blaze and prevent it from spreading further.”
They then confirmed that one lone crew remained on the scene into the afternoon with a water bowser to “continue dampening down any remaining hotspots,” with the fire fully put out shortly before 1pm that same day.
Althorp House has a long, aristocratic history with the Spencer family being custodians of the sprawling estate for more than 500 years.
It was the childhood home of Princess Diana and her siblings, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Lady Jane Fellowes, and Charles, who became custodian in 1992 after the death of his father, John Spencer.
Following the tragic death of the Princess of Wales in 1997, she was laid to rest on the estate on a small island in the middle of the iconic ornamental Round Oval Lake.
To this day, her final place of rest remains private and inaccessible to members of the public, even when the Althorp Estate opens to the public during the British summer.
