Worthing's newest aristocratic resident Lady Colin Campbell is starting the new year with the task of restoring her new home, Castle Goring in Worthing.
The Jamaica-born eccentric, 66, revealed that she had bought the rundown Grade I listed building when she entered the Australian jungle in November as one of the contestants in the ITV reality TV show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
"I was obviously the grandest person in the camp. We know that the British public are obsessed with class," she said after quitting the show early following clashes with fellow contestants Tony Hadley, the Spandau Ballet singer, and Dragon's Den star Duncan Bannatyne.
"There is no prospect of me ever having Tony r Duncan in my life in any way, shape or form," she said.
"They have earned my disregard... They will have to live with it."
As the start of the series, which ran during November and December, Lady C, as she became known, told viewers there were two reasons she had entered the jungle: to lose weight and to pay for a roof for the castle she bought for £700,000 in 2013.
It's thought I'm A Celebrity contestants are paid six-figure-sums to take part in the series.
The 18th-century castle, which sits south of the A27 on the outskirts of Worthing within the South Downs National Park, is in need of £2 million worth of repairs.
It is on English Heritage's list of neglected building, which describes it as "a fragile gem of a country house [that] now urgently requires major repairs".
The roof work alone is thought to cost £50,000 after thieves stole lead from it in 2012.
Designed by John Rebecca for Sir Bysshe Shelley, the grandfather of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and built in the 1970s, it has famously been home to novelist Mary Shelley and a Navy vice-admiral among others.
Inside, the country home has at least six bedrooms, inter-connecting reception rooms, a card room with leather wallpaper and a refurbished owner's apartment at the top complete with a kitchen, dining room, two bedrooms and a living room.
It's believed there is a glass dome above a spiral staircase described as "magnificent".
In 2013, at the time of the dale to Lady C, previous owner Clement Somerset refused to comment, but recently told The Argus newspaper: "It's been in our family for 200 years, so we were caretakers of it.
"I suppose, for that time and now Lady Campbell is the occupier.
"It was lived in up until the war, then it was requisitioned before it was turned into a language school."
When asked why he sold it, he replied: "Why do you think?", referring to the extent of the building work the property requires.
Lady C, a writer who published books about Princess Diana's affair with James Hewitt, was at the heart of many key moments in I'm A Celebrity: she was involved in explosive rows and was voted to do many bushtucker trials whilst always wearing her pearls.
She was one one of three Sussex contestants in the jungle, alongside the former boxer Chris Eubank, of Hove, and What Not To Wear presenter Susannah Constantine, who lives on a £5 million estate in Sussex.
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