Sorry saga surrounding historic Windlestone Hall

FOUR years ago I met William Davenport and his wife Ann after hearing that Windlestone Hall, near Rushyford, County Durham, had changed hands.

The couple were charm personified and laid out their plans to restore the property to its original splendour and create an equestrian centre on the site. William was quieter than his ebullient wife, but equally well mannered and spoke with a calm assurance.

I was to be invited along once the work was complete and was told to keep their names under wraps in order to get the story.

• Six years for 'greedy eyes' fraudster William Davenport

But that invite never came. Knowing what we know now, this was the Davenports on a charm offensive, posing as wealthy investors with an interest in historic property, when the reality was quite different. They had no significant funds of their own to speak of.

I went away and wrote an exclusive story which was quickly followed up by the national press and the BBC.

There was much interest in what was happening to Sir Anthony Eden’s Grade II* listed ancestral home, which was designed by the architect Ignatius Bonomi, but also shock that it had been sold by Durham County Council so cheaply. A sum of £241,000 was the sale price paid on November 29, 2011 - considered a snip by many - although the estimated cost of refurbishment was put at more than £3.5m.

The questions began - county councillor John Shuttleworth, pictured below, was at the forefront of them.

He said the whole episode “smacks of incompetence”.

“Those at the council responsible should now consider their position," he said.

“The council should have done adequate checks and sounded him (Davenport) out and made sure he had adequate finance in place.

“It has been a total embarrassment. It is a case of the wrong people doing the wrong jobs.

“It is the council tax payer that is owed the money from this. Something has gone majorly wrong.”

His original complaint prompted an Audit Commission report. It cleared the council of any wrongdoing, but said it should have been more transparent and obtained a second independent valuation.

The authority said it achieved “best value” in the sale following a housing market crash. It also pointed out the costs in maintaining the deteriorating property – £198,831 between 2006 and 2011 – and said the 24 hour a day security required on it to deter vandals and metal thieves amounted to £81,000 a year.

I asked what checks had been carried out on Davenport before a sale was agreed, but a spokeswoman for Durham County Council would only say: “The purchaser produced bank confirmation of the availability of funds to buy the house and those funds were delivered.”

The spokeswoman confirmed a condition of the sale had been payment of £25,000 to the Davenports to repair the central heating system at Windlestone.

This was because it had been advertised as having a working central heating system and this was found not to be the case.

Davenport later used the payment in his negotiation with the banks, claiming it was in fact his monthly salary.

As well as Cllr Shuttleworth, others also asked questions. I spoke to Wayne Baister, a Bishop Auckland-based property developer who had previously shown interest in Windlestone Hall. He was equally flummoxed by the reduced sum it sold for. In 2006 the council had accepted a £1.5m offer from a preferred developer after it was put up for sale by sealed tender on the open market, although it was later withdrawn.

Cllr Shuttleworth also contacted Durham Police, writing to Chief Constable Mike Barton. That complaint didn’t seem to gain any traction until the spotlight was turned on Davenport himself, leading to his eventual arrest on fraud and forgery charges.

I continued being in regular e-mail contact with Davenport, but became increasingly frustrated with his replies and felt I was being fobbed off when I endeavoured to find out what was happening with the hall.

Eventually in October 2014, I met the Davenports again, along with a daughter of Ann’s, at a coffee shop in Bishop Auckland after hearing Windlestone was again up for sale. This time the atmosphere was different.

It was frosty. I felt under attack from all three and found myself repeatedly having to defend the reports The Northern Echo had published.

As far as they were concerned they had been “vilified” in the press, making their lives intolerable. Ann had also separated from William because of the stress.

They seemed keen to micro manage the story and said they were selling up because they had been unable to acquire additional land for development. William stated to me he had “saved the hall from the horrific condition that it was in”.

A derelict area at the hall

Staggeringly, and although one room - a bathroom - had been restored and work was carried out to make the roof watertight, the hall and land in a series of lots were now up for sale for £2.56m with North-East firm Urban Base – more than ten times what the Davenports paid.

A month later, and unbeknown to me at this stage, Davenport was arrested by police and bailed on suspicion of fraud. His deception in fraudulently obtaining finance and loans in order to buy the hall was unravelling. Was likely detection by the authorities the real reason why our most recent meeting had been so fraught?

Early last year a consortium of North-East businessmen said they had bought the land and outbuildings on the estate with a view to building luxury apartments and also had exchanged contracts for the hall. The eventual planned outlay was put at about a million pounds.

But that sale was later disputed by Davenport who said he was unaware during negotiations that buyer Garry Moat had been arrested by Northumbria Police as part of an investigation into alleged fraud. No action was ever taken against Mr Moat by police.

Garry Moat

Things turned ugly when workmen acting on behalf of Mr Moat used force to enter the estate, sawing off a security barrier on an access road to the hall. This led police to be called.

William Davenport, who has remained living in the property despite family members returning to the US, said he remained the registered owner of the hall and land. Land Registry records show that the hall is his, for now at least, although land to the north and south of the hall does indeed belong to Garry Moat and his wife Joanne with £120,000 being paid for it on December 17 2014.

Graeme Blenkinsopp’s firm Wisemove was employed by the Davenports in 2014 to sell seven and-a-half acres of land within the hall grounds for up to 25 executive homes in order to raise funds for the hall's refurbishment.

He said: “Our involvement largely ended when we got notification the county council were unlikely to grant planning approval. It was pointless us continuing.

“I was in the company on probably three occasions of William, Ann and her daughter Meagan.

“Ann was always the very loud spokesperson, very American. William, or Bill, rarely communicated.

“Sometimes the meetings would go off at a tangent with Ann believing that a lot of people had an ulterior motive against their purchase of the land and they were being bullied by the Press and their neighbours.”

Mr Blenkinsopp said the purchase price for the hall and land had been “very cheap” and he was “gobsmacked” at the amount, but said it could not be disputed that the property required substantial work.

He said: “The decision making (of the council) just to do a deal with someone who had approached them was wrong.

“It wasn’t publicly marketed or the opportunity presented back to a number of people who had previously expressed an interest.

“Questions have to be asked of the council for the way they sold it. Whether they did any checks on William Davenport as a prospective purchaser, it’s unlikely I would say.”

However he said there had been no alarm bells during his dealings with the family that suggested anything was wrong.

“You have got to take people at face value and at no time did William come across as a fraud,” he said.

Mr Blenkinsopp speculated it was highly likely the property would now be re-possessed by the banks.

Neighbours living near Windlestone Hall said they had rarely seen Davenport since his arrest. One said: “There are horses in the field bleating for food and we regularly see cars coming and going, but nothing of him.

“He won’t be missed, mind you.”