No Camelot fairytale for refugees after plans scotched
The owner of a high-end Cornish hotel claims the Home Office wanted to place migrants in his 65 rooms for a whole year
ALAMY
John Mappin turned down a request accommodate migrants at Camelot Castle in Tintagel, fearing the effect on the tourist trade
John Mappin turned down a request accommodate migrants at Camelot Castle in Tintagel, fearing the effect on the tourist trade
With its nod to local Arthurian legend and an illustrious roll-call of guests, including the actors Sir Laurence Olivier and Ava Gardner, Camelot Castle in Cornwall might not seem the most obvious choice of accommodation for asylum seekers arriving in Britain.
However, the multimillionaire owner of the historic home-turned-hotel in Tintagel has claimed he was recently asked by agents for the government if they could use all his rooms — including a £256-a-night suite with sea views — to accommodate migrants and refugees from across the world.
John Mappin, of the Mappin & Webb jewellery dynasty, said the offer came last month, with the Home Office struggling to handle record numbers of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.
“We had a call . . . two weeks ago offering to rent every room at Camelot Castle, 365 days a year, 65 bedrooms for one full year for asylum seekers,” Mappin wrote on Facebook.
“I explained that Camelot Castle is a historic high-end holiday destination with a heritage and that there might be a possibility that the place would be trashed.
They said ‘No worries’, take photos of the rooms and any damage done, the government would repair the property.”
It is thought the contract would have been worth about £1 million, but Mappin, 57, turned down the offer, fearing it would deprive tourists of somewhere to stay and affect the local economy.
“When I asked what the government’s solution was for the loss of revenue for other local businesses who rely on local holidaymakers, they did not have an answer,” he posted. “They also expected us to fire all but three of our existing staff as [they said] food and cleaning would be organised by the government.
“While it would have been a very profitable move, we decided that the local community in Cornwall and Tintagel might be better off without such contracts.”
Built on a clifftop in the 1890s by Sir Robert Harvey, a mining tycoon, Camelot Castle quickly became a popular destination for the great and good of late Victorian and Edwardian society.
Gardner stayed there while filming Knights of the Round Table in 1953. It was also used as a location for Dracula, starring Olivier as the vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing, in 1979.
Mappin, whose family company has served British monarchs for more than a century, bought Camelot Castle as a private residence in 1999, but later chose to open its rooms to paying guests. Its website describes staying at the property as an “opportunity to have a Downton Abbey experience for Everyman”.
When contacted last week, Mappin, who still lives at Camelot Castle, explained his rejection of the offer to house asylum seekers. “A pound spent here in Tintagel is probably spent around nine times locally before it leaves the area.
“Many families benefit from one pound spent by a visitor. So destroying local tourist expenditure by blocking tourists from booking the one main hotel in the village destroys local economic systems.”
Camelot Castle would not have been the first historic home to be hired by the government to accommodate migrants.
Stoke Rochford Hall, a 19th-century pile in Grantham, Lincolnshire, started housing refugees last year, including those fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The hotel was said last month to have had to cancel a number of weddings when it was ordered to take on more migrants with “immediate effect” under the terms of a “compulsory contract”.
More than a year after the government’s evacuation mission from Kabul, about 10,000 Afghans remain in hotels.
The Home Office said it did not comment on operational arrangements at individual sites. A spokesman added: “The number of people arriving in the UK who require accommodation has reached record levels and has put our asylum system under incredible strain.
“There are currently more than 33,000 asylum seekers in hotels, costing the UK taxpayer more than £5 million a day. The use of hotels is a short-term solution and we are working hard with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation.”
@DipeshGadher
£256 The cost per night for a suite with sea views at the clifftop hotel in Tintagel, north Cornwall
However, the multimillionaire owner of the historic home-turned-hotel in Tintagel has claimed he was recently asked by agents for the government if they could use all his rooms — including a £256-a-night suite with sea views — to accommodate migrants and refugees from across the world.
John Mappin, of the Mappin & Webb jewellery dynasty, said the offer came last month, with the Home Office struggling to handle record numbers of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.
“We had a call . . . two weeks ago offering to rent every room at Camelot Castle, 365 days a year, 65 bedrooms for one full year for asylum seekers,” Mappin wrote on Facebook.
“I explained that Camelot Castle is a historic high-end holiday destination with a heritage and that there might be a possibility that the place would be trashed.
They said ‘No worries’, take photos of the rooms and any damage done, the government would repair the property.”
It is thought the contract would have been worth about £1 million, but Mappin, 57, turned down the offer, fearing it would deprive tourists of somewhere to stay and affect the local economy.
“When I asked what the government’s solution was for the loss of revenue for other local businesses who rely on local holidaymakers, they did not have an answer,” he posted. “They also expected us to fire all but three of our existing staff as [they said] food and cleaning would be organised by the government.
“While it would have been a very profitable move, we decided that the local community in Cornwall and Tintagel might be better off without such contracts.”
Built on a clifftop in the 1890s by Sir Robert Harvey, a mining tycoon, Camelot Castle quickly became a popular destination for the great and good of late Victorian and Edwardian society.
Gardner stayed there while filming Knights of the Round Table in 1953. It was also used as a location for Dracula, starring Olivier as the vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing, in 1979.
Mappin, whose family company has served British monarchs for more than a century, bought Camelot Castle as a private residence in 1999, but later chose to open its rooms to paying guests. Its website describes staying at the property as an “opportunity to have a Downton Abbey experience for Everyman”.
When contacted last week, Mappin, who still lives at Camelot Castle, explained his rejection of the offer to house asylum seekers. “A pound spent here in Tintagel is probably spent around nine times locally before it leaves the area.
“Many families benefit from one pound spent by a visitor. So destroying local tourist expenditure by blocking tourists from booking the one main hotel in the village destroys local economic systems.”
Camelot Castle would not have been the first historic home to be hired by the government to accommodate migrants.
Stoke Rochford Hall, a 19th-century pile in Grantham, Lincolnshire, started housing refugees last year, including those fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The hotel was said last month to have had to cancel a number of weddings when it was ordered to take on more migrants with “immediate effect” under the terms of a “compulsory contract”.
More than a year after the government’s evacuation mission from Kabul, about 10,000 Afghans remain in hotels.
The Home Office said it did not comment on operational arrangements at individual sites. A spokesman added: “The number of people arriving in the UK who require accommodation has reached record levels and has put our asylum system under incredible strain.
“There are currently more than 33,000 asylum seekers in hotels, costing the UK taxpayer more than £5 million a day. The use of hotels is a short-term solution and we are working hard with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation.”
@DipeshGadher
£256 The cost per night for a suite with sea views at the clifftop hotel in Tintagel, north Cornwall