Landmark tower restored with public money is up for grabs in prize draw

When the 175ft-high gothic Hadlow Tower was put on the market earlier this year for £2million, there was outrage that the owner stood to make substantial profit from a restoration project funded by public money.

Yet the sale did not go quite as planned and its owner, Christian Tym, a tax accountant and former banker who purchased it little more than a year ago for just £425,000, took it off the market and came up with another plan.

The Grade I-listed folly near Tonbridge in Kent is now up for grabs via a public raffle, for which tickets cost between £4.50 and £2.75, depending on how many you buy.

The winner’s stamp duty will also be covered as well as help with solicitor's fees and a year's council tax.

But there are a few catches which have provoked further ire within the local community and accusations that the competition is little more than a “money making scheme” that “cheapens the status” of the tower.

The smallprint reveals that Mr Tym will only hand over the property, the world’s tallest gothic folly, if he sells more than 800,000 tickets, which could net him at least £3.6million.

If he sells at least 200,000 tickets, the winner gets his three-bed Caribbean villa instead and Mr Tym will either extend the deadline of the competition or keep the tower with a view to putting it back on the market.

In order to sell off the tower in a competition, he was legally required to test entrants’ skill, knowledge or judgment by including a quiz question.

That takes the form of an equation, which at first glance appears simple but could flummox those not au fait with such mathematical challenges. Mr Tym, 42, admitted that a “wide variety of answers” had been submitted.

He insisted this was not “a rich man trying to sell a property” and that five per cent of the proceeds go to charity. A weekly draw gives one ticket holder two nights in the tower, worth £2,000.

The Save Hadlow Tower Action Group (SHTAG)  fought relentlessly to get the tower restored after it was severely damaged in the Great Storm of 1987 following years of neglect.

Its work was recognised with two English Heritage Angel Awards, founded by Lord Lloyd-Webber, one of which - voted for by Telegraph readers - celebrated the work of local communities in rescuing important sites.

The musician and impresario was among those who voiced reservations about the tower’s sale, warning that it could undermine everything the property represented.

“A huge amount of public money was spent on this project,” he told the Telegraph at the time. “If it’s going to be sold, it should be returned to Historic England and the Heritage Lottery Fund. It can’t go into the pocket of a private person.

“I don’t think the public purse should be used to speculate – this seems to have slipped through the net.”

He was also concerned at suggestions that any potential buyer might be able to buy their way out of a legal covenant that requires the tower to remain accessible to the public 28 days a year amid claims that visitor numbers had dwindled.

Mr Tym said he had hosted around 40 visitors on open days since purchasing the tower in August 2017. Campaigners said they showed around 800 people in the first eight months of that year. 

Caroline Anderson, former chair of the SHTAG, said she was “appalled” by news of the competition.

“This iconic Grade 1 listed monument is now being raffled (read the Ts and Cs carefully) and will most probably not finish up someone’s hands whilst the owner gets rich,” she wrote online.

“I doubt whether any of us would have given our time freely and continuously if we had known it would come to this.”

Hadlow Tower was built in 1838. It changed hands several times before a compulsory purchase order was served by the local council in 2010 and it was sold to the Vivat Trust, a charity that preserved historic buildings, for £1.

More than £3million of public money was ploughed into the tower, including more than £50,000 raised by community campaigners.

In 2016, the Vivat Trust went into liquidation and the four-bedroom home set over five of the tower's eight storeys was put on the market for offers over £1million.

It was eventually sold to Mr Tym, who is married with four sons but found it unconducive to family life.