What percentage of the aristocracy in England continues to live in their ancestral homes?
That’s difficult to answer, but certainly many have had to sell their houses or make money by opening them to the public in order to afford death duties. The Marquess of Bath, for example, has opened a safari park at Longleat House and the house is open to the public – he lives in only a small part of it. Similarly, the Duke of Devonshire has opened part of Chatsworth House to the public and the estate has a popular farm shop (interestingly the house is nowhere near Devon – it’s in Derbyshire, and there is a theory that a mistranslation of the Latin on the original letters patent creating the title is the reason for this – it should have been “Duke of Derbyshire”). The oldest title in the peerage of England that is still extant is the Barony of de Ros, created in 1264. The current holder of the title is the 28th Baron, and he lives on the family estate in Northern Ireland. The oldest peerage title in England with a holder still living in the style you might expect is the Duke of Norfol
