Renaissance Man

Karen Kranenburg talks to the 4th Viscount Cowdray

It is a crisp September morning when Lord Cowdray welcomes me to Cowdray Park House, and as we make ourselves comfortable in the informal wood panelled drawing room with large picture windows and the outstanding views over the rolling South Downs, as a polo player, one could not help but feel enthused by the 100 years of polo history encompassed in those walls. 
Some describe Hon. Michael Pearson, the 4th Viscount Cowdray as a “new age hippie”, others decsribe him as an eccentric. For my part I find him utterly charming, self-effacing and unlike most aristocrats very much in touch with 21st Century thinking.  This thinking might at times have put him at odds with the noble society of his birth, but the thing that is refreshing about him is that he doesn’t seem to care; one could almost describe him as Zen, which would not be inappropriate as he and his wife Marina are practicing Buddhists.  Bearing this in mind however do not expect to find Lord Cowdray roaming around the Estate in flowing orange robes chanting mantras.   Whilst Buddhism might be his chosen path of spirituality, he is very much a renaissance man with modern ideas, and an exceedingly shrewd business acumen, which has seen the Cowdray Estate flourish under his tenure. 

With a passion for racing cars rather than polo, one might wonder why with 2 generations of avid players before him did he not take up the reins so to speak. His father was obviously keen for  him to follow in his foot steps and pick up the sport and become a world class player, and as such pushed him, which Lord Cowdray  acknowledges was probably not to best way of ensuring his participation; “My father didn’t quite understand that Children had other things that they would like to do with their activities and I was forced to ride, at 13 I had a moderately bad fall, so I never really played myself.  My father I think recognised his mistake with me and with my younger brother Charles he didn’t push quite as hard and he took up the game, even though he no longer plays,... subsequently his wife Lila  has taken over.  He enjoyed it because it wasn’t quite pushed on him the same way as it was  on me”.... 

As a result, upon the death of his father the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, some thought that the future of  the home of British Polo might be in question.  However, one of the first things that the present Viscount Cowdray did to ensure the sustainability of the Club, was to ensure that it was set up  as a separate business entity independent of the Cowdray Estate, with an adept committee who were responsible for the day to day management and running of the Club, unlike in the days of this father who even though there was a committee,  ran the club in a rather autocratic fashion, and underwrote the costs of its running as well; “Polo was my father’s passion although he had a committee to run the club, he used to tell the committee what was going to happen and they could either rubber stamp it or get lost”...  We wanted things to be run a bit differently, with slightly more of a commercial angle, but whilst retaining the essence of it as a member’s club   “What is made over and above our annual costs is ploughed straight back into the club for capital expenditure for the next year. It is now independent of the Estate, but is still very much a club that is for members and so it does have a family friendly feel”.

Most recently he controversially put the stately Cowdray Park House; a 44,000sq ft mansion, which has been in the family since 1909, and as such is the “family seat”  up for sale as he and his wife descided to downsize to a smaller house on his sprawling 16,500 acre estate.  As one knows, stately homes take a bob or two to maintain,  and homes of this size built in the first half of the 20th Century, are not necessarily very eco friendly, and Lord Cowdray is if nothing else, but a friend of the environment, consistently looking for ways of making the Cowdray Estate Green, and this functionality certainly begins at home, hence the decision to sell;    "I'm not the sort of person who feels hugely attached to things, and it's a big house. It's time for us as a family to let go,......we feel much more comfortable moving into a sustainable home, with perhaps one housekeeper”.   Thinking further down the road and with the benefit of the pitfalls that have befallen other stately home owners – he didn’t feel the need to encumber his son and heir, who will eventually be the 5th Viscount Cowdray with this burden;  "I have worried whether I will be leaving Perry a wonderful asset or a noose around his neck. I fear it is likely to be the latter”.

Whilst he might be selling Cowdray House, he most certainly is not signing away his birthright.  The family will retain the rest of the Estate which includes the ruins of the vast Tudor Cowdray House, a golf club, holiday cottages, extensive farmland and the polo club, which hosts some 450+ matches each year.

There is one thing that Lord Cowdray is very passionate about though and that is the sustainability of the environment, the Cowdray Estate already some while ago implemented sustainable organic farming and  has a biomass project as well in place.   Lord Cowdray is hoping that their new “downsized” home will as well be run on bio mass fuels.  It is a project which he would like to see implemented on a larger scale throughout the area, but which he admits does have its limitations at present.