Lady Jane Willoughby

1934 -

The last direct descendant of the Earls of Ancaster is Lady Jane Willougby who continues in the tradition established by her forbears by maintaining links with Bourne. She is president of several organisations, notably the Civic Trust and the Butterfield Centre, and is always ready to attend meetings and therefore a frequent visitor to the town when she is staying at nearby Grimsthorpe Castle, the family home.

She is also a deputy lieutenant of Lincolnshire and served as a member and chairman of Bourne Rural District Council until it was disbanded during the local government re-organisation of 1974, and of South Kesteven District Council until 1983.

Nancy Jane Marie Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 28th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby PC was born on 1st December 1934, daughter of the late Gilbert James Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 3rd Earl of Ancaster and his wife Nancy Phyllis Louise Astor. The couple also had a son, Timothy Gilbert, who was born on 19th March 1936 and was heir apparent of the earldom of Ancaster but he lost his life in a tragic boating accident off Cap Ferrat in 1963.

On the death of her father in 1983, the earldom and barony of Aveland became extinct while the baronetcy, also held by him, was passed on to a distant relative, Gilbert Simon Heathcote. The ancient Barony of Willoughby de Eresby, however, was inherited by his only daughter, the present holder of the title and she became the 28th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby.

Lady Jane is also a joint hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain and sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher and in 1953, aged 18, served as a train bearer and one of the six Maids of Honour to Elizabeth II during the 1953 coronation.

She is unmarried and without issue. Her presumptive heiress is her first cousin Carola Eloise Hume, born on 26 October 1938. In 1959, then aged 24, there was a suggestion that she might marry the recently divorced artist Lucien Freud but nothing came of it.

Lady Jane is listed each year in the Sunday Times Rich List and in 2008, when she appeared at the 1,572nd position, her wealth was given as £48 million in finance.

In 2010, she was listed ninth in a list of Britain's top ten richest people by the Country Life magazine in the most extensive survey of its kind since 1872, her wealth including land covering 78,200 acres worth £120 million, 15,000 acres around Grimsthorpe castle, her home near Bourne in Lincolnshire and 63,200 acres in Perthshire where she also has a home at Drummond Castle, near Crieff.

See also

Lady Jane Willoughby at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

The Earl of Ancaster