A controversial aristocrat has launched an appeal to find a bride – and says he’ll pay her £50,000-a-year to give him male heirs and help run his sprawling 1,300-acre Somerset estate.
But despite edging ever closer to his eighties, Sir Benjamin Slade, 79, isn’t ready to settle for second best and has drawn up a long list of qualities he’s looking for in a wife.
The first cut-off point for interested applicants is age, as the next Lady Slade must be at least 20 years younger – meaning women in their 60s need not apply.
Sir Benjamin says he is after a ‘good breeder’ to provide him with at least two male heirs, although explains that having already birthed a child is not a dealbreaker.
He added: ‘I can have two sons, three would be better, but if I get two sons that saves the situation.
‘You always have a lady of the house, women run houses. People think that it is sexist. Jane Austen said if you got a big house, you need a wife.
‘The ladies run the house. They run the staff, they have an eye for it.’
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