Tom Nash thought he would have Greystoke Castle finished by now. We hear how the Liverpool engineer turned a dilapidated private seat into one of the county's busiest new venues, and why the hardest part is still to come.

For most of the world, Greystoke is a name borrowed by Tarzan. For most of Cumbria, it was a place glimpsed from the road: a castle that had stayed firmly private for more than 800 years, its grounds off-limits and its rooms a matter of local speculation.

That changed in 2023, when Tom Nash took on a long-term lease and set about doing something no previous occupant had attempted. He opened the doors.

His route to the castle was hardly conventional. Originally from Liverpool, he trained as an engineer before moving into hospitality, and was hunting for a hotel opportunity when he noticed the contents of Greystoke going under the hammer. An emptying castle, he reasoned, must surely be a castle in search of a new tenant.

"I thought if they're emptying the castle, surely there's going to be an opportunity for it to be leased or bought," he says.

He was right, though what he inherited was some way short of move-in condition. "At the time it was pretty dilapidated," he admits. "We had a lot of work to do to turn it into somewhere people could visit, with restaurants, coffee shops and tours."

Greystoke has never been a building that gives up easily. It has stood on the site since the Norman period, weathered civil war and successive rebuildings, and served as a prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. It has proved similarly resistant to being hurried into its next life.

"To be fair, I thought I'd have this up and done by now," he says, with the rueful honesty of a man who has met a planning department. "But the building works, planning and costs took a lot longer than we anticipated."

A full diary

Progress may have been slower than hoped, but it has hardly been invisible. The castle now has a restaurant, guided tours and an events programme that would put many purpose-built venues to shame, while work continues on the bedrooms and the remaining parts of the building.

Around 10,000 people have visited so far this year, by Mr Nash's estimate, with some 2,000 of them joining a castle tour. The calendar runs from comedy nights and concerts to medieval re-enactments, family festivals and seasonal attractions, with the goal of staging more than 100 events a year.

The bill has its share of familiar names. Tony Christie has appeared, as have comedians Stan Boardman and Mick Miller, while a classic car show is lined up for September and an exhibition devoted to Mary, Queen of Scots arrives in early 2027.

Keeping that many plates spinning requires a reliable ticketing system, and Greystoke found one close to home in TryBooking, a fellow Cumbrian business introduced through the Chamber of Commerce. Mr Nash values the human touch as much as the technology: there is someone at the end of the phone, and the team were closely involved in getting the castle set up.

For managing director Joan Lind, the appeal of the account lies in its sheer variety. "Tom isn't selling just one type of event," she says. "It's everything from comedy nights and concerts to afternoon teas and historical tours, so flexibility is really important."

Events created on the platform appear automatically on the castle's own website, saving hours of administration, and the booking pages carry Greystoke's identity rather than TryBooking's.

The big house getaway

The tours and the concerts, however, are something of a prelude. The longer-term ambition is to turn Greystoke into a luxury exclusive-use venue, where a single party takes the whole castle for a wedding, a celebration or simply a very grand family holiday.

"It'll become a wedding venue, a big house getaway," he says. "People will hire the whole place to live in with their families. You'll have a butler, you can have a chef, games rooms, cinema rooms."

It will not, he stresses, be a hotel in the conventional sense. Seven restored bedrooms will be available on an exclusive-use basis, while the tours, afternoon teas and a selection of annual events that have won the castle its new audience will continue. The aim is to complete the transformation within the next year, though Mr Nash, having learned his lesson once, may be forgiven for not circling a date.

Nor does he see Greystoke as a rival to the county's established stately homes. He is happy for it to sit alongside Holker Hall and Muncaster Castle, part of a wider offer rather than a competitor to it.

Neighbours, at last

Commerce is only half the story. The castle has backed local schools, community groups and fundraising efforts, and educational visits and woodland activities are being developed.

The warmest response, though, has come from people who have lived alongside the castle all their lives without ever setting foot inside the grounds.

"One minute you weren't allowed up here, now they can come up and have a coffee and sit in the grounds," he says. "They've never been around the back of the castle. They never even realised we had ponds and moats and all kinds of different wonderful things."

For a building that spent eight centuries keeping the world at arm's length, it is quite a change of temperament. Greystoke, it turns out, was never unfriendly. It was simply waiting for someone to put the kettle on.

For more information, click here.