The future of a historic 14th Century house in High Laver is in doubt following a split among the trustees charged with maintaining it.

Mashams, a beautiful timber-framed medieval hall house which until 1998 was the home of Derek Shuttleworth, has been the responsibility of a group of local trustees since it became a registered charity in 1992.

The charity was put in place to safeguard Mr Shuttleworth's dying wish that the house, which was his home for 70 years, should remain open and free for schoolchildren to visit to learn from its unique history.

However, a drop in the number of school visits has forced trustees to look at selling the house and using their resources in other ways.

Mashams trustee Patrick Streeter has been fighting to keep the house open and says a private sale would be "a tragedy".

He said: "I fear we may have come to the end of the line with our attempts to save Mashams. This is a tragedy as a unique house, together with its garden and contents will be lost forever."

Mr Streeter had hoped the house would remain in the hands of the charity and feels more could be done to attract local schools to visit the historic site.

"We've got a £130,000 endowment" he said. "There are people who are willing to be new trustees - all we need to do is advertise for a new curator then there's no reason why it can't continue as Mr Shuttleworth wanted it to."

The Charity Commission has given the trustees permission to sell the house because of the lack of school visits and their plans to use the money raised to give educational grants to underprivileged children.

Trust secretary Graham Cass said the majority of the trustees firmly believed that "far more good" could be done by selling the house.

Published Thursday January 29, 2004

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