Making the big house work

The Duke of Devonshire was recently asked what he would do if he won the Lotto. He replied without a moment's hesitation: "Mend the roof."

The roof in question keeps the rain off Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. It covers the best part of an acre and costs a fortune to maintain. Generations might inherit family silver but unfortunately they also have to go on paying for the roof.

It may have been a flippant remark from one of Britain's richest men but it was not untruthful. The Duke, of all people, knows that a fine house, whether it is a stately home or a Victorian farmhouse, is an expensive thing to maintain.

His solution is to open Chatsworth to the public. But those Londoners who have upped sticks to the Regency terraces and Georgian rectories of southern England do not have that option. They have to look at other ways of making their houses work, to keep bricks and mortar together.

'Most of our clients are barristers or actors'

Photographer's stylist Dotty Fraser, and her husband Nick, moved from Fulham to their Grade II* listed Queen Anne house in Winchester six years ago. Nick, a futures trader, decided that once the London LIFFE trading floor had closed he could work from home. So the couple - and their four children - bought the large house with its Victorian extension, rambling garden and spare field for £660,000.

They spent £200,000 getting the house right and that did not include the many hours of work they put in themselves. Every window and doorframe was sanded down to its original wood. Every floor was taken back to bare boards, fireplaces were opened up and en-suite bathrooms introduced.

"It was only when we started doing up the attic for the children that we realised exactly how expensive it was to run and restore this house," says Dotty.

That was the moment she decided to run a bed and breakfast. The bedrooms in the austere house, each with television and electric kettle, are extraordinarily capacious with magnificent views across Winchester. Dotty charges £55 for a double room and £35 for a single.

"Most of our clients are barristers or actors," she says, as she picks at a short length of crumbling brick-and-flint garden wall that she says would cost more than £3,000 to even partially restore. "The people who stay here are the sort of people who enjoy staying in a beautiful house. We sometimes book in a couple overnight and they stay for days."

The house is now full every weekend, except for the rare occasions when Dotty keeps it free for friends, and a large proportion of weekdays during the summer. But she admits she needs as many "bums in beds" as she can get, as so much work is left to do. "All the money I make from the B&B goes back into the house," she says.