Dent-Brocklehursts part with Turner

The Dent-Brocklehurst family are selling one of their most prized heirlooms, a painting by JMW Turner, in order to pay for the upkeep of their Gloucestershire country house, Sudeley Castle.

Lady Ashcombe, the head of the family, has decided to put the 1808 landscape Pope's Villa in Twickenham, up for auction at Sotheby's London in July, in the hope that she can raise at least £5m to save the castle - once home to Henry VIII's sixth wife Catherine Parr.

Lady Ashcombe claims the estate is "haemorrhaging money" - as much as £100,000 a year - despite receiving an income from corporate events and weddings. She currently shares the home with her daughter Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst (pictured), son Henry and his wife Lilli Maltese and their two children.

The painting, which was bought by an ancestor in 1827 and is one of only 20 Turners still in private hands, is considered one of the most significant to be sold in recent times. Emmeline Hallmark, Sotheby's head of British painting said: "It is incredibly rare to find something that hasn't been on the open market for 180 years."