Kent's High Sheriff, Richard OIdfield, interviewed
Above: Richard Oldfield, Kent's High Sheriff (Kent Life Magazine)
Above: Richard Oldfield, Kent's High Sheriff (Kent Life Magazine)
Above: Richard Oldfield, Kent's High Sheriff at his home, Doddington Place (Kent Life Magazine)
Approaching Doddington Place, home of Kent’s new High Sheriff, I play an interesting game of ‘dodge the lambs’ as they amble nonchalantly across the long drive that leads to his home.
It’s certainly an impressive residence, and it seems only fitting that Richard Oldfield should suddenly appear against this backdrop, calling my name and dressed in rather fetching blue velvet and matching navy tights, a crisp white stock at his neck.
But this is not his everyday attire, Richard is just back from what will be one of many engagements in his year of office – and we need him to stay ‘in character’ to get some great pictures for Kent Life. It is, however, definitely the first time Manu and I have been offered not only a mansion, but also rolling acres, complete with an Irish grey called Steely, and a very inquisitive donkey, for our pictures.
A notable house
Richard, 52, has lived at Doddington Place for 25 years, ever since it was bequeathed to him by a childless second cousin once removed, who continued to live in one end of the house until he died seven years ago, at a magnificent 100 and a half.
Married for the second time, following the death of his first wife in 1995, and father to four children ranging in ages from 10 to 23, Richard is relaxed about whether any of them will carry the house on in the future. “It’s not a notable house and has been in my family for 100 years, not 500,” he points out.
“I also believe people are a lot more important than property. If any of my children want to come here, that’s great, but if they don’t want to, it wouldn’t really bother me terribly. I don’t want them to be under a terrible sense of obligation. It’s very intensive and very time consuming looking after a place like this – but I love it. It was built in 1870, so it’s very solidly put together, with a sense of real Victorian confidence.”
I believe people are a lot more important than property
Wasn’t it a bit daunting, inheriting Doddington in his twenties? “I suppose it was a bit daunting at first, but we just got used to being daunted,” Richard says. “I knew the place well already from lots of childhood visits, and we haven’t done a great deal to the house. We’ve done more in the garden – the framework was there from 1910, when the first of my family came here, but we have added borders, planted hedges and changed sections.
“We’ve just done a huge project with the Edwardian rockery, which will mellow as everything grows. It was all built originally with Maidstone ragstone and we’ve bought in a lot more local stone. It’s been terribly exciting.”
The gardens are open every Sunday from 2 to 5pm, from Easter to the end of September and also Bank Holiday Mondays. They also provide the perfect background for opera and theatre – on 11 and 12 July, the Opera Project will perform Falstaff in aid of the Kent Association for the Blind, while Midsummer Night’s Dream is playing here on 26 and 27 July, presented by The Changeling, Hazlitt Arts Centre and Maidstone Music.
Having established he has the perfect place to entertain guests during his year of office, we turn to all things shrieval. So, how’s it going so far? Richard gives me a rueful smile: “At my very first engagement as High Sheriff, I sat next to a Mayoress in Tunbridge Wells and she said, ‘oh, so you’ve taken over from Nigel, have you? He was very jolly – are you jolly?’ Which was difficult.
You’ve taken over from Nigel, have you? He was very jolly – are you jolly?
“Nigel should have HATF on the back of his High Sheriff’s badge – Hard Act to Follow. I’ve heard it so many times already. I’ve really got HATF squared, as I follow Amanda Cottrell and then Nigel Wheeler in the role.”
Illustrious predecessors aside, is Richard enjoying the role? He smiles: “I think it’s wonderful being High Sheriff, I find it all fantastically interesting and great fun. I’ve asked some previous High Sheriffs – not the HATF squared duo – what’s it like and they say how interesting, but not necessarily how much fun – and it is.
“So far I’ve attended an open day at Canterbury Court and took the part of a forger who had to throw a ‘wobbly’ in the dock – I threw a very good ‘wobbly’ – and then I was part of the jury. It was full of laughs but it did have a serious purpose, to show justice being done and being seen to be done. It was a fascinatingly interesting day – superbly run by Adele Williams, one of the top judges in Canterbury.”
All High Sheriffs have their particular themes for their year in office and Richard is most interested in getting involved in stopping people re-offending, and the programmes which are in place that help achieve that – so will be working closely with the police, the probation services and prisons.
Richard will continue working with a number of charities he is already involved with, including Demelza, of which he is President, and supporting Canterbury Cathedral’s fundraising campaign.
Marathon man
“I took part in the London Marathon this year for Demelza and the Cathedral,” he tells me. “My time was abdominal - four hours 56 minutes - but it was two minutes quicker than last time, so I’m very pleased about that. Probably shows lack of effort last year.”
So how was the experience? “It was ghastly, I hated it!” he cries, in mock horror. “I took my little recorder round with me, in case I had any great thoughts – I didn’t - but halfway round I said, ‘I hate this, I mustn’t forget how much I hate it, I never want to do this again,’ to remind myself. I’m very determined not to do it again.”
Richard’s stepfather was in the army, so he had a rather peripatetic childhood, growing up in London, Essex and, for a couple of glorious years between the ages of five and seven, Jamaica – which he loved, and still does today.
“I didn’t have any real roots until I came here when I was 27 – roughly half of my life ago,” he says. “I’m not a Man of Kent nor a Kentish Man, but I feel very passionate about Kent, and part of it, and I adore being at Doddington.
I didn’t have any real roots until I came here when I was 27
“It’s amazing to be so near London and yet have these amazing tracts of countryside.” We gaze out of the drawing room window. “What I love is the view, when the blossom is on the cherry trees, and all that prospect and promise.”
And it was that view that inspired a mid-life decision to take up riding. “I looked out of the window one day 12 years ago and thought there should be a horse there, with me on it. I’d never ridden, but I had a very good teacher who said I needed an objective, and that objective would be that I was hunting by the end of the season. I went for an hour a week and I was hunting by the end of the season. I learnt to ride and then bought Steely.”
Richard works in investment management, and has done since 1977, when he graduated with a degree in history from Oxford. “I’m balancing both roles at the moment, it’s tiring but it seems to be working and it’s very enjoyable – I pack as much as I can into my days,” he explains.
The busy days leave little time to pursue hobbies, but Richard tries to ride once a week, reads a great deal and has written a book about investment called Simple but not Easy, which he is giving a talk about at Leeds Castle on 8 July.
He also enjoys working in the garden: “I’m a very ignorant gardener, but alright with a spade, under instruction, and I like chainsawing, which ticks all the boxes of things boys like – a wholly destructive sort of activity, but with a purpose. There’s certainly plenty of material around here.”
Another very big ‘plus’ of the High Sheriff role means how much more of the county Richard will get to visit. He knows east and north Kent very well and is looking forward to getting to know the west a lot better. His wife, Amicia, is planning a fundraising walk around the coast of Kent this summer and he hopes to join her on some of the sections. “She’s bought lots of maps and sellotaped them together to see what scale of project it is,” he says.
The couple have a little “shack” at Seasalter, which they escape to when they can: “We get there around 6pm on a Saturday and have fish and chips in Whitstable, we watch the sun set over the sea, then we go back to the shack and read, have a swim in the morning and we’re back here by 10am feeling as if we’ve had a mini holiday.”
A fondness for Sheppey
Richard also has a special fondness for Sheppey – “a rare enthusiasm, I know, but I think it’s a magical place” – describes Faversham as a “wonderful town, its centre is a gem”, and also loves Canterbury and the coastal towns of Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Margate.
“I love the sea, the coast and the woods of Kent,” adds Richard. “I’m very into trees, I like planting them and I like the fact that they last so much longer than we do. Here I’ve planted English native in the park - beech, ash, horse chestnut, a few maple. We have a couple of cherry orchards and I love the fact that we produce something each year, 90 per cent of cherry orchards have been grubbed in the UK, so it’s a real treasure to have them.”
With passions like these, I think Kent is in for another HATF.
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