Manor house owner wins Supreme Court challenge over sale of his urns

Idlicote House

The owner of a manor house has won his Supreme Court challenge to a prosecution over the controversial sale of two 18th Century urns that decorated his garden.

Marcus Dill was facing a planing enforcement notice over the missing vases, by Flemish sculptor John Van Nost, which had been sold at auction for £55,000 in 2009.

The homeowner was unaware that the urns and their pedestals had been included on the Grade II listing of his home, Idlicote House in Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, in the 1980s, and he argued it was unfair to force him to retrieve them. He also said the urns were not buildings and should never have been listed.

Stratford-on-Avon District Council refused to back down, threatening him with prosecution if he could not restore the urns and their plinths.

Today at the Supreme Court, Mr Dill emerged victorious after judges agreed that the urns were not “buildings”, sending the case back to Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick to reconsider how moveable ornaments should be dealt with in listed building decisions.

The Supreme Court in London
PA

“Under the statutory scheme a listed building means ‘a building which is included in the list’”, said Lord Carnwath.

“It is an essential element that the thing in issue be a ‘building’. If it is not in truth a building at all, there is nothing to say that the mere inclusion in the list will make it otherwise.”

During the court battle, Mr Dill argued he does not know who had bought the urns at auction and has no way of getting them back.

The ornaments were moved from another historic house to Idlicote House in 1973, twenty years before Mr Dill inherited the seven-bedroom manor house from his late father, a former cavalry officer.

Mr Dill said he had no idea that the urns had been listed in the early 1980s following a national survey of buildings of historical interest.

He argued that the ornaments and their pedestals should never have been given listed status but lost challenges to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government and in the High Court.

His lawyer, Richard Harwood QC, warned of “very serious” consequences for Mr Dill, including a prison sentence, if convicted of breaching the planning enforcement notice.

He said the urns had been bought by an anonymous buyer at auction, and even if traced they could not be “compelled” to return them to Idlicote House.

The council said it first became aware of the urns’ removal in 2014 and began enforcement proceedings in 2015, rejecting a bid by Mr Dill for retrospective listed building consent to remove them.

Lord Carnwath said today that the case should now be sent back to the Minister, with judges urging the government to reconsider of “the treatment of such items under listed building legislation and the legal principles in play”.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in