UK market review - number 28, 2011

Born to a yeoman County Durham carpenter in 1711 and suffering from a speech impediment, Thomas Wright became the first to glimpse the true nature of the Milky Way and the unimaginable vastness of the universe. An expert in navigational equipment, he also designed a number of spectacular houses and gardens and enjoyed the patronage of powerful landowners and royalty.

Thomas was probably unusual amongst his childhood peers in that his parents managed to pay for some home tutoring, at least to a basic level. His speech impediment led him to focus not on languages but mathematics and – possibly seeing its relevance to his father's craft – technical drawing. This helped him, aged 14, to secure an apprenticeship with a clock maker in Bishop Auckland and to progress to studying navigational equipment.

At 18, Thomas might have made a career as a ship's navigator, but crippling sea sickness forced him to return to land where, showing impressive self-confidence, he set up a navigation school and devoted his spare time to advancing the science of navigation. The success of his work attracted the attention of aristocratic patrons and the Admiralty, providing opportunities for Thomas to persuade wealthy patrons to indulge an interest in astronomy-inspired architecture and garden design. Hence the heavenly themes of rooms at Hampton Court House and The Menagerie, his medieval-style folly Westerton Tower being a disguised observatory and Wright's constant deference to the path of the sun and pattern of the seasons in both his architectural and garden designs. This was almost certainly true of his designs for George III's St James' Park, though they were never used.

It was, however, in his astronomy that Wright, perhaps less constrained by convention than his collegiately educated contemporaries, proved a truly radical thinker; here that his ability to realise what he was seeing showed him to be much more than a good craftsman and designer. The first to realise that the night sky's many faint nebulae might in fact be incredibly distant galaxies, he saw how tiny our place in the universe might be and wrote:

"In this great celestial creation, the catastrophy of a world, such as ours, or even the total dissolution of a system of worlds, may possibly be no more to the great Author of Nature, than the most common accident in life with us, and in all probability such final and general doomsdays may be as frequent there as birth-days or mortality with us upon this Earth."

The Menagerie, designed by Wright in 1753 and restored by Gervase Jackson-Stops in the 1970s, is currently being marketed by our Northampton office at a guide price of £1.45 million.

Information primarily courtesy of Durham University.

JSS PRIVATE FINANCE

Mortgage price war
as lenders cut rates

Despite interest rates sticking at 0.5% for more than two years, it doesn't look as if they will rise anytime soon. The global downturn, slow UK economic growth and expectations that inflation will fall in the medium term, mean it is possible that interest rates will not rise until well into 2012.

Meanwhile, lenders are busy slashing the pricing of their fixed-rate mortgages. Falling money market rates and a danger of lenders missing end-of-year lending targets, is resulting in some of the cheapest fixed-rate mortgages ever. There are now several five-year fixes available at less than 4%, for those with significant equity – 25% to 35% – in their homes, or similar level of deposit. For example, at the time of writing, Jackson-Stops & Staff Private Finance has access to a five-year fixed rate at 3.49% (4.3% APR) for those with a 35% deposit and £999 fee.

Two-year fixes are cheaper still, with a growing number of options at less than 3%.

Borrowers must decide whether they require the security of a fixed rate when the threat of an interest rate rise has receded. Much depends on your circumstances. If you want to know what your monthly mortgage payments will be to help with budgeting, then a fixed rate makes sense.

Borrowers on cheap standard variable rates (SVRs) of around 3% may wish to stay put for now while interest rates are low. But those on more expensive SVRs – around 6% – may well consider remortgaging, as the rate they are paying will not fall and they may be able to secure a cheaper fixed rate.

Jackson-Stops & Staff Private Finance specialises in providing sound mortgage advice and can be contacted on 0870 600 1650.