Duchess returns to take in Karaka sales

The Dowager Duchess of Bedford and former Racing Minister Winston Peters. Photo / Martin Sykes

A British aristocrat who spurned her family's vast British country estate is returning to her New Zealand properties this month.

Henrietta Tiarks, Duchess of Bedford, is an international horse-racing figure, ex-fashion model and former owner of the Bloomsbury Stud near Matamata.

Her assistant Glenis Betty said she would be back from England this month, mainly to attend the Karaka bloodstock sales which started on Monday.

But she will also spend time at her Auckland townhouse.

In early 2007, the duchess announced she intended to sell her 120ha Bloomsbury Stud after the death of her husband, Robin, Duke of Bedford - also known as the Marquess of Tavistock - who died in London on June 13, 2003.

Much of the bloodstock and stud were sold but the duchess still keeps at least two New Zealand properties and was last year reportedly part of a blue-blood consortium buying Invercargill commercial properties.

The Bedfords first came here in the early 1990s to invest in the thoroughbred industry, initially buying a filly, Snap, which won a number of major races. Snap was also the foundation mare of the Bloomsbury Stud, 6km south of Matamata.

Under their ownership, the property grew to 120ha and incorporated a 120-cow dairy herd, six houses and extensive stabling.

The duchess has links to prominent racing figures here including Sir Patrick Hogan, and she was pictured with former racing minister Winston Peters at the official launch of Sir Patrick's Cambridge Stud biography in 2007.

Glenis Betty said the duchess retained the original farmhouse on the stud and a 2ha piece of surrounding farmland. "But all the horses are at other places. We don't have a lot of land any more. She sold the stud and most of the bloodstock but she still has about 20 to 30 horses in New Zealand."

The duchess was believed to be part of a consortium reported last winter as buying inner-city Invercargill properties and investing more than $50 million via big real estate investment deals in Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua, Napier, Christchurch, Timaru, Dunedin and Invercargill.

Syndicate members were reported to include the duchess' son, the 15th Duke of Bedford, Andrew Russell, Lord David Wolfson of Sunningdale and English property tycoon Nigel Ross.

For almost three decades, the duchess lived near Woburn Abbey, a 5300ha English estate where Queen Victoria stayed on her honeymoon and which has been her late husband's family home since 1668.

The Guardian said Henrietta Tiarks "was largely resistant to the charms of Woburn, with its 14 bedrooms, 21 Canalettos and its 13,000-acre estate".

"She hated going to live there, having attempted to make it a condition before she married that she would not have to do so. She and her husband spent a great deal of time in a small house 50 miles from Woburn, called the Mouse House, which could have been easily fitted into the West Hall of Woburn Abbey."