“Money is something I’ve always liked,” said a 12-year-old Jacob Rees-Mogg in a 1982 interview. “I’ve always wanted to be rich.” Now a multi-millionaire, the former Tory MP, Brexiteer — and star of his own reality TV show, Meet the Rees-Moggs — has done just that.
In 2019, Spears Magazine put his net worth as “well over £100 million”, thanks in part to his fund management firm, Somerset Capital Management, and his extensive property portfolio.
In 2007, Rees-Mogg married into further money. His wife, Helena de Chair, is the daughter of the aristocrat Somerset de Chair and Lady Juliet Tadgell, who inherited the Fitzwilliam family’s £45 million fortune at age 13. De Chair stands to inherit everything.
As an MP, Rees-Mogg declared farmland and property in Somerset and London. But the former politician has other valuable assets. From his Grade II listed country estate to his Westminster townhouse, here’s a look at the properties Rees-Mogg has called home.
Current: Gournay Court, West Harptree, Somerset
Cut from red sandstone, Rees-Mogg’s sprawling Grade II listed house is the family’s primary home, alongside Cowley Street. It is also where Meet the Rees-Moggs is filmed.
“In Somerset, we have a mansion,” explains one of his sons in the trailer. The clip also reveals original fireplaces, an arched Tudor entrance flanked by two Doric columns and a wood-panelled dining room. There are shots of the traditional interiors, enormous portraiture and of staff polishing silver candelabras.
Gournay Court was built around 1600 by surgeon and natural historian Frank Buckland. By the end of the century the property had become part of the Duchy of Cornwall where it remained until the early 20th century.
During the First World War, it was used as a Red Cross hospital, chosen in part because it had been newly renovated for Prince John, the epileptic son of Queen Mary and King George V, who had died before moving in. Rees-Mogg’s great aunt worked as a nurse here.
Rees-Mogg bought it for £2,911,000 in 2010.
He has adorned the interiors with portraits of his idols such as Margaret Thatcher, and he has a team of staff who run the place, and who are prominent characters in the show, particularly Shaun who acts as caretaker, driver and hostile graffiti remover.
There is also a historic chapel on site, which Rees-Mogg visits daily when he’s in Somerset. His Catholicism is a central part of the show and he provides a tour of the chapel where he reveals his collection of religious relics, including what he says is a fragment of the cross Jesus was crucified on.
Current: Westminster
In 2018, Rees-Mogg moved from Mayfair to a five-storey 18th Century townhouse on Cowley Street, metres away from the House of Commons. Rees-Mogg told ITV he had moved, “because Cowley Street is cheaper and I couldn’t afford a bigger property in Mayfair”
Still, the new property wasn’t exactly cheap. Rees-Mogg bought it from former Tory party deputy chairman and businessman Lord Michael Ashcroft for £5,625,000, according to the Land Registry.
Rees-Mogg renovated the house, coming under formal investigation for not declaring that he received £6 million in loans from Saliston, one of his companies, which were invested in the property. This was not upheld, with the inquiry concluding the loans did not need to be registered.
The street has a vibrant political history. The Liberal Democrats HQ was based here until 2011. John Major based himself here when he quit as party leader in 1995 and took on the Eurosceptics. Nearby, on Lord North Street, Winston Churchill based himself to take on Neville Chamberlain in 1940 and Harold Wilson once claimed his townhouse there had been secretly bugged by MI5.
Current: Pall Mall
Saliston has owned the freehold of a building on Pall Mall since 2006, reported to be worth £4 million. According to the Land Registry, the building contains four flats and commercial premises, available under three separate leases.
A rental listing from 2016 advertised the commercial space for a total of £172,000 per year. Saliston owns investment properties worth a total of £7.84 million, according to its most recent accounting.
Past: Underhill Farm, Orchard Vale, Somerset
Underhill Farm, north-west of Rees-Mogg’s former constituency, Midsomer Norton, is about 10 miles from Gournay Court.
Title documents show the land was once owned by Rees-Mogg’s parents, before passing to their son. Since 2014, though, the farm has been officially listed as owned by Thomas Meadows, a business manager with links to the family’s companies, and Richard Cussell, a solicitor specialising in tax and inheritance planning.
Past: The Old Rectory, Hinton Blewett, Somerset
No longer owned by the Rees-Mogg family, the Grade II listed Old Rectory was the former politician’s childhood home between 1978 and 2001.
The house has five reception rooms, six bathrooms , an indoor swimming pool, pastry kitchen, walled garden and gym. It was listed for sale for £2.75 million last year.
