A GRAND Tudor estate which is five centuries old has secured a Government grant of £150,800 to help secure its future.

Grade I listed Layer Marney Tower has received the cash from as part of a £92 million Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage, managed by Historic England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The cash will be used to help with the estate’s running costs, for investment in the attraction’s website, repair works and to help create a new educational space in a medieval barn.

Nicholas and Sheila Charrington are the owners of the property and run The Marney Partnership, which has secured the cash from the Government.

Mr Charrington said: “It really is brilliant news and we are really grateful to the Government and the National Lottery Heritage Fund for the money.

“It will go towards helping us with the running costs.

“We have lost hundreds of thousands of pounds during lockdown. We have lost more than the grant but this will go some way towards helping.

“It will also be used to help us become more resilient as a business by enabling us to upgrade our website to create a new booking system.

“It will also help us repair some chimneys which normally we would have already done but we’ve held off because of the huge loss of income.

“The last thing will see some money go towards replacing the floor in an old medieval barn.

“Once finished it will become a flexible space for educational activities and we will be starting a new forest school here.”

Visitor numbers have dropped dramatically at Layer Marney Tower, the largest Tudor gatehouse in Britain, during the coronavirus crisis.

The public had to be stopped visiting the house in March. Residents were readmitted in July but the house has closed down again in preparation for the winter.

School visits are still welcome but the number of youngsters attending the site has plummeted.

Mr Charrington said: “Schools visits have completely dried up. We normally have 4,500 children visit in a normal year.

“I can’t remember the exact figure but we are 70 per cent down on that this year.

“We feel well prepared to keep people safe but it is about people having the confidence to visit.

“This cash is about our survival and trying to make us stronger for the future.”

Walton’s Naze Tower has also secured £32,800 of the funding pot to help mitigate the challenges its layout poses to social distancing measures.

The cash will help the group which runs the mothballed tower to work with Tendring Council to get the facility ready to reopen in 2021.