For couples looking for a particularly special venue for their forthcoming nuptials, there is no doubt that the stunning Euridge estate more than hits the spot.
Nestled amid glorious Cotswold countryside just a few miles from Bath, its honey-coloured stone buildings, acres of grounds, helicopter landing pad and a ballroom for 150 guests can – as its website trumpets – deliver celebrations of all varieties, from ‘twinkling fairy tale’ to ‘edgy decadence’.
That promise has certainly proved enticing for the many dozens of couples who have exchanged their vows in the past few years at the £12 million estate owned by 77-year-old John Robinson, multimillionaire founder of Jigsaw, the fashion chain loved by members of the well-heeled middle class.
No doubt the fact Robinson played Cupid to no less than our future King and Queen is an added enticement. While still a commoner, Kate Middleton once worked for Robinson at Jigsaw’s London headquarters and, in 2006, she and Prince William enjoyed the tycoon’s hospitality at his hillside villa on Mustique, the exclusive Caribbean island favoured by rock stars and royalty.
John Robinson, multimillionaire founder of Jigsaw, the fashion chain loved by members of the well-heeled middle class, with his now ex-wife Belle
Today, there is certainly no shortage of takers for weddings – 41 last year alone, many featuring two-day celebrations that can stretch long into the night. In 2022, Poldark star Eleanor Tomlinson was among the lovebirds when she exchanged vows with rugby player Will Owen.
Alas, as the Mail can reveal, in the past two years a series of dark clouds have gathered over the sprawling 450-acre estate.
In August 2022, amid mounting objections from residents about noise pollution and dangerously congested roads around Euridge, Robinson was given four months to stop hosting events there – a decision he told planning officers was impossible as he had weddings booked many months ahead.
That order is now the subject of an appeal, which started at the end of April and which, the Mail is told, awaits a decision in November. If he loses, Robinson’s wedding business would likely have to stop almost overnight.
Stressful enough, you may think. But now, as the Mail revealed recently, Robinson is embroiled in another slice of controversy. In August he could be found in a less bucolic part of the county – in the dock at Swindon Magistrates’ Court, facing charges relating to animal cruelty on his estate.
Kate Middleton once worked for Robinson at Jigsaw’s London headquarters
Alongside his farm manager, Charles Williams, Robinson stands accused of nine animal welfare offences following complaints by members of the public who claimed to have seen very sick or unwell sheep on his land. If convicted, the offences carry a possible prison sentence.
Both men were bailed to appear at Swindon Crown Court last Friday. No plea was entered, and the hearing was adjourned until February where, the court was told, both men will seek to have the case dismissed.
Whatever Robinson’s fate, it is an ignominious turn of events for a man who counts royalty among his friends (shortly before her death in 2002, Princess Margaret dined at Hibiscus, his villa on Mustique) but who, as the Mail can reveal, now seems to have made no shortage of enemies in his picturesque slice of Wiltshire.
‘It’s not just a few disgruntled or envious villagers who are revolting,’ one local told the Mail this week. ‘It is all strata of society and over a huge area across the valley. It’s no exaggeration to say a large number of people are incredibly upset by what has gone on in recent years, and many will be delighted to see John get some comeuppance in whatever form.’
It is also another colourful chapter in a life that is not short of them, and which has been underpinned by Robinson’s irrepressible entrepreneurial drive.
Raised in Herefordshire, Robinson was an agricultural college graduate when, in 1968, aged 20, he went on holiday to Turkey and brought back a sheepskin coat. When people asked where it was from, he realised he had a market, returned to Istanbul and filled an old Post Office van with 60 more.
A Jigsaw store in Oxford, one of many run by the fashion brand across the UK
By 1970, that nascent business had turned into Jigsaw, an operation that, together with his now ex-wife Belle, 60, he turned into a thriving success story, with 60 shops in Britain and others in America and Australia.
With success came vast personal fortune – he and Belle were at one time estimated to be worth around £130 million – enough to acquire the Hibiscus villa in the mid-1990s. When the neighbouring plot came up for sale, he built another villa, Sienna.
It was through their ownership of Hibiscus that the Robinsons played their part as royal matchmakers. In 2006, they were approached by friends of the now Prince and Princess of Wales to see if they would be prepared to loan their villa for a holiday in return for a donation to charity.
In the wake of this holiday, a grateful Kate – then 25 and four years away from being engaged – enquired about a job, and was duly employed three days a week by Jigsaw as an accessories buyer.
John Robinson has been charged with animal cruelty offences on his £12million country estate, The Mail on Sunday revealed
‘She wasn’t precious,’ Belle recalled later. ‘She sat in the kitchen at lunchtime and chatted with everyone from the van drivers to the accounts girls.’
Long before Robinson planted a stake on Mustique, however, he had put down roots in the English countryside. In 1980 he purchased Euridge Manor Farm (Euridge meaning ‘ridge of yew trees’) then a 200-acre estate with a five bedroom farmhouse, assorted outbuildings and three cottages.
No shortage of alterations have taken place on the estate over the years – not least the addition of 250 acres of surrounding land, acquired in the 1990s.
There have also been assorted extensions, the conversion of stable buildings and, in 2001, the addition of an orangery complete with two bedrooms and an indoor swimming pool.
The orangery had been let as a holiday home on Airbnb from 2012, but in 2015 it was also registered as accommodation for guests attending events at Euridge.
Certainly the estate is no stranger to parties. For years, Robinson hosted a country fayre and summer ball, attended by the local community. In 2004 he held his wedding to Belle – then 40, and mother to two daughters from a previous relationship, Jessie, now 35, and Izzy, 34 – at Euridge, a spectacular affair that went on until the small hours and was topped by a ‘gigantic’ firework display which caused some grumbling from neighbours.
The couple went on to have three children of their own: Jack, 29, Molly, 27, and Christina, 24.
It seems relations between Robinson and the locals were cordial enough until 2015 when they discovered Robinson had registered a business called Euridge Manor Weddings Incorporated. The weddings quickly followed and, according to villagers living near the estate, there has been a ‘significant’ level of disturbance from traffic, music and firework displays lasting into the small hours. This has led to many residents lodging formal complaints with the council.
Many pointed out that the estate did not have planning permission for ‘change of use’ in order to host weddings. This, in turn, prompted Robinson to submit a retrospective application, as well as seek approval to create more on-site accommodation, including ten camping pods and a treehouse.
Once both proposals were made public, there was no shortage of objections. One was from Sarah Toogood, who lives in Colerne, who wrote: ‘The desire to convert it [Euridge] into a money-making establishment has come at a great cost to me, my family and numerous other local residents.’
No less than Tory peer Baron King of Bridgwater also threw his hat into the ring, writing that ‘what started as a modest extension to the existing farm enterprise has grown into a major event location and has highlighted how unsuitable the access is for it and the disturbance that it causes to all those living nearby’.
Meanwhile, Damaris Broad, Wiltshire environmental control and protection officer, stated his belief that Euridge was breaking licence conditions with regard to noise levels and ‘causing disturbance’.
The volume of protest was such that in August 2022 Robinson was told to cease holding events within four months – an instruction that was immediately met with a reply from his advisers claiming this was impossible, and that he would need at least 18 months in order to fulfil the obligation of existing bookings.
An enforcement action was duly stayed, pending the outcome of an appeal, which started at the end of April this year. In other words, there is a stand-off.
‘There is no doubt in my mind Mr Robinson has the wherewithal and the desire to tie the council in knots for so long they will eventually submit to his will, and he can carry on minting it and to hell with the rest of us,’ another disgruntled local told the Mail.
‘It has been pretty miserable living here over the past few years, with the terrible disruption and antagonism this has all caused.
‘I know there have been occasions when he’s run into residents he knows have challenged the validity and acceptability of what he is doing and there have been some quite tense stand-offs.’
Another – who also asked not to be named – said: ‘We all choose to live here because it is the most wonderful, peaceful and beautiful location. Or it was. We know we were privileged, but we appreciated and treasured it,’ she said.
‘Now we’re plunged into the midst of all this chaos and unpleasantness. Meanwhile, he ploughs on regardless. Does he really need the money that much?’
Quite so. Given that his wealth once saw him propelled into The Sunday Times Rich List with £130 million, the £30,000 cost of hiring Euridge alone is surely small change.
Or perhaps it was. Some have pointed out it is maybe no coincidence the wedding business was incorporated in the year after Robinson’s shock divorce from Belle in 2014 after ten years of marriage. (They had already been together ten years before they married.)
The couple separated in 2013, with Robinson remaining at Euridge and Belle basing herself at the couple’s multi-million pound flat in the heart of Chelsea, where she proclaimed herself ‘devastated’ by the turn of events.
In 2014, the couple formalised their separation with a ‘quickie’ divorce hearing at London’s High Court and, the following year, Robinson’s weddings business began in earnest.
It should also be pointed out that last year Robinson placed his second Mustique villa, Sienna, on the market for a price understood to be in the region of £23 million. ‘It has not been sold,’ a spokesman for agents representing the sale told the Mail.
Naturally, Robinson is fighting back. Benjamin Pearce, a planning consultant representing him in the ongoing dispute, has argued that events being held there are largely ‘incidental or subordinate’ to the lawful residential use of the manor house estate.
He emphasises that in order for the house to be safeguarded and enjoyed by future generations, it must diversify in the same way as other grand country estates.
He points out, too, that the events create local jobs, with weddings providing £340,000 in salaries for full and part time staff from the surrounding area in 2023 alone – although this figure is disputed by locals who claim agency staff from outside the area are often brought in to provide services.
‘It’s not gone unremarked that the only comments in support of the planning application are from people who provide wedding services but aren’t actually based here,’ said one neighbour.
Feeling is so strong that last year locals commissioned their own independent report from local property consultants Bidwells, which they submitted to the council.
‘There is insufficient evidence provided to conclude that the proposal would not have an unacceptable impact upon highway safety, and the application should be refused,’ one of the firm’s principal planners, Rachel Woodman, wrote. It is against this torrid backdrop that Robinson now finds himself facing animal cruelty charges, dating from November 2022 to January this year.
The charges follow a number of Facebook posts highlighting instances where members of the public had come across injured or poorly sheep on the estate.
Emma Carroll, prosecuting on behalf of Wiltshire Council, told magistrates in Swindon that charges had been brought following inspections on the farm following ‘complaints from the public’ who had ‘seen very sick or unwell sheep on the land’.
As we have seen, the case rumbles on, meaning it will be some time before Robinson – who declined to comment when approached by the Mail – faces the law once more.
One thing seems sure, however: whatever the outcome, bad feeling is likely to linger in its wake.
Additional reporting, Simon Trump.