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The richest vicar in Britain: He's worth £20m, owns a string of hotels and describes his wealth as a 'great joy'
The Reverend Robert Parker is many things to many people. To his congregation he is a benevolent vicar with a reassuring smile, to the Bishop of Derby a trusted adviser.
But to guests at his country house hotels and workers on his estate he is Mr Parker, a successful businessman with a shrewd eye for a deal and all the wealth that brings.
His assets include three hotels in Northumberland, one in Edinburgh, a 2,000-acre estate in Shropshire and a seven-bedroom holiday home in the Dordogne with its own golf course
His is a vast fortune by any standards, but for a priest it is unheard of, something Mr Parker, surely Britain's richest vicar, is all too aware of. 'It's a massive contradiction,' he admits. 'There's little in life I couldn't do if I choose to. Do I feel guilty? Yes, I've agonised about it.'
The Bible tells us it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
It's a great joy,' he says. 'I won't deny it, but I hope I hold it loosely.
'I enjoy it but I hope to pass it on in a way that benefits others. What I've learned is money in itself is corrupting, because it can make us focus too much on ourselves, but money as a device can change lives.'
He concedes that he has critics in the Church. 'There are those who criticise me all the time – saying, "How dare he be involved in ministry having all this money? He might give to charity but in reality it costs him nothing" – and those who say, "Ignore them, they're just jealous.""‰'
He contends the notion of other-worldly vicars is often a myth. 'Most I know are concerned about a new car, a holiday or a retirement home. 'I would hope most clergy have another side that makes them altruistic. But to say it's their main driver is, I think, to deny the truth.'
Mr Parker founded his business empire in 1984, after leaving a position in the Church because he grew frustrated with the 'office politics'.
Going to a bank manager to secure funds to buy his first nursing home for £370,000, he was told he would normally need to have a deposit of about 30 per cent, or £120,000. 'The manager said, "How much can you raise?" I replied, "About £1,500." His face didn't change, I've always appreciated that. He said, "Leave it with me," and then gave me a 100 per
Over the next 20 years, one care home turned into nine, caring for 270 residents and employing 350 staff. When he sold the business in 2006 for £43"‰million, he had expected no more than about £25"‰million, nearly all of which would have gone to paying off debt. 'Suddenly you're left with £24"‰million in the bank. It came as a wonderful surprise.'
The grandson of a miner, Robert Parker grew up in Derbyshire, where his father, Bob, was a primary school head. His parents were Methodists, but he became an Anglican when he joined the local choir. It was after hearing a sermon at the age of 15 that he decided he wanted to be a vicar.
He says: 'Our wonderful vicar, John Norman, gave an address in which he talked about the priesthood as a vocation. He said he was there at the most important times of a person's life – at their marriage, at their death – and explained what a privilege it was to share those moments.'
But despite his sense of vocation, Mr Parker struggled with many of the traditions of the Church. His logical mind – he had an early aptitude for mathematics – could not accept a literal reading of the Bible.
'There are people who criticise me all the time'
He says: 'One thing that really got to me, and still does, is most of my fellow clergy are sucked in by medieval theology which I can't hack.
'People don't walk on water, don't rise from the dead, don't ascend back into the clouds.
'You've got to say, "OK, this guy John who was writing the story, obviously he knew that, so he was trying to tell us something." For me the message of that story is very simple – if you put your hand in God's and you walk with God, anything is possible.'
Having gone to study mathematics at Portsmouth Polytechnic, he was taken under the wing of a retired bishop, Noel Chamberlain, a cousin of Prime Minister Neville.
'It was extraordinary, almost God-given, although I don't believe in that. He said I want you to go to Oxford to Robert Runcie because your theology is so close to his.'
Mr Parker studied for two years under Runcie, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury.
He married an old schoolfriend, Linda, with whom he had two children, Rebecca, 43, a cancer consultant, and Nick, 41, a vicar.
His career in the Church began as a curate in Sheffield, after which he took up a post as a maths and divinity teacher at Cheltenham College. While he was at the renowned public school, the Bishop of Gloucester offered him the parish of St Mary's in Yate, near Bristol.
Mr Parker says: 'It was a big new brash town with three churches. It caused a bit of a stink as I was only 32 and it should have gone to a man of 45 on the preferment ladder.'
In Yate he first exhibited the business skills that would later make him a millionaire, in a comprehensive redevelopment of his parish.
He says: 'All the churches were on the periphery so we built a new one in the centre and remodelled one of the existing churches. We turned the tower into three offices, gutted the church and put in flexi seating.
'It's what you do with your wealth that matters'
'It was very controversial. But here we are now and most bishops say it needs to happen. To keep a church open, at a basic level, costs £30,000 a year. It's a massive burden.' While in Yate he was offered the position of development director of the Anglican Church, but he found the job difficult. He says: 'It would take two years from the first committee meeting to getting a decision. My frustrations grew and I was having problems in my personal life.'
He left the position and he and Linda divorced the following year. It was after his resignation that he made that fateful visit to the bank manager to buy his first care home. His empire has grown unimaginably from those origins. He bought the Tedsmore estate in Oswestry in Shropshire, which includes a dairy farm, racing stables and thousands of acres of woodland.He went on to buy Guyzance Hall, a 19th Century country house in Northumberland, as a second home for him and his second wife, Gina, 67, a retired dentist he met in 1995. He rents out Guyzance for group bookings and weddings.
More properties followed, including two stately homes turned hotels, also in Northumberland: Doxford Hall, near Alnwick, and Eshott Hall, near Morpeth. He says of venturing into the hotel industry: 'I know about staff, old buildings, food. I was confident that I could make it work.' Two months ago he purchased Dalhousie Castle, near Edinburgh, after the owners, Von Essen Hotels, went into administration. He paid £5"‰million – far less than the £7.5"‰million asking price, and half what Von Essen had paid for it ten years ago.
He is happy to admit he enjoys his wealth: 'As a boy I used to beat for Colonel Olivier, Laurence Olivier's cousin, who owned the local estate.
'I used to think what must it be like to have all this – to have no one who was going to walk out and scream, "Get off my bloody land."
'Even now, six years on, I come down the great staircase into the grand hall and think, is this really me? My father, who is still living independently at 94, says, "If only Mum and your grandparents could have seen it and shared in it." It would have been beyond their understanding, totally outside their experience.'
Reflecting on what he should do with his fortune, he says: 'The scriptures are quite contradictory. On the one hand you have the eye of the needle but, on the other, you have lessons which say it is not the amount of money you have but what you do with it that matters.
'I hold no assets personally, almost none. The bulk of it is in trust for charities – some Church, some non-Church – both here and abroad.'
Relaxing on his estate, Mr Parker seems the picture of a country squire, but he took up the ministry again in the mid-Nineties, going around the country to wherever he may be needed to take a service. He said: 'My title is reverend, and I preach in different places. Technically, to be a vicar you have your own parish, but people still call me vicar.
'There's no average week. I take a service on a Sunday morning, maybe two, then I zip up and take Dad out for lunch.'
In 2007, Mr Parker was appointed special adviser to the Bishop of Derby on the care of the elderly. As far as his business interests go, he is currently giving particular attention to his Shropshire estate and the dairy farm there on which he has 200 Friesians.
'We're putting in a half-a-million-pound automated dairy which will take the herd up to 400. Eventually we'll produce £1"‰million worth of milk a year.'
It may be odd to hear a priest talk of turnover and profit, but this is the strange reality of Mr Parker's world. Though he does see the obvious contradictions and admits to feelings of guilt, he doesn't see the need to apologise for his financial success.
He says: 'It's about how you can use it. I have taken care of the children but after that, on our death, we will do a huge amount of good across the world. So in terms of the criticism, it is best totally ignored.
'I can't justify it so I hope I smile fairly benignly and carry
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