The grand clock ticks away to the precise second on the outside of the majestic building, but inside, time stands still at the almost abandoned Stoke Rochford Hall.
The grand stately pile, with a colourful past, has remained empty for the past year and a half.
The last residents living in luxury in the imposing Victorian mansion with stunning landscaped gardens were asylum seekers, but they were given their marching orders in February last year after a Government contract with the hotel company abruptly ended.
Today, the hotel, owned by socialites Neil McCorquodale and wife Lady Sarah - elder sister of the late Princess Diana - but on a ‘forever’ lease to two multi-millionaire brothers, has its doors firmly closed to guests and visitors.
The only people allowed access to the historic property - surrounded by 30 acres of land in the sleepy village of the same name near Grantham in Lincolnshire - are just a handful of staff.
