EMILY PRESCOTT – Model Mandy Lieu joins the landed gentry

EMILY PRESCOTT – Model Mandy Lieu joins the landed gentry spending part of her £29m break up fee on the Duke of Wellington’s former Hampshire country seat

What’s a girl to do when she gets a £29 million ‘break up fee’ from her married lover? Model Mandy Lieu certainly wasn’t about to squander it on fripperies.

She spent most of her windfall from casino tycoon Alvin Chau buying the Ewhurst estate in Hampshire, formerly the country seat of the Duke of Wellington. Mandy, 37, a face of Dior, Hugo Boss and Swarovski and one of Asia’s stars of modelling, TV and film, is one of a new breed of female chatelaines – a crew that includes Ellie Goulding, Geri Halliwell and Ed Sheeran’s wife Cherry Seabourn.

This glitzy new generation of landowners are determined to make country estates eco-friendly through rewilding instead of focusing on grand houses.

What’s a girl to do when she gets a £29 million ‘break up fee’ from her married lover? Model Mandy Lieu certainly wasn’t about to squander it on fripperies

She spent most of her windfall from casino tycoon Alvin Chau buying the Ewhurst estate in Hampshire, formerly the country seat of the Duke of Wellington

‘Landowning has always been about preserving the big house, sometimes at the expense of the land,’ Mandy said. ‘I think the need to restore the historic estates outweighs that.’

And she clearly has the farming knack – she has already opened a deli in Notting Hill where organic produce from Ewhurst is served up.

Who says men can’t multi-task? U2 frontman Bono manages to conduct morning meetings of his anti-poverty charity One while simultaneously getting his daily exercise in. 

One former employee tells me that the 62-year-old rock star and activist pounds a treadmill shirtless while addressing staff who sit cross-legged on the floor of his Dublin bolthole. 

That’s certainly one way to run things… Ironically, one of U2’s songs is entitled Running To Stand Still. 

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