ONE of Winchester’s most prestigious venues has upgraded its heating system with state-of-the-art renewable technology.

Avington Park owners Sarah and Charlie Bullen have replaced three oil burners and a gas boiler for a Water Source Heat pump from Ecovision Renewables, which will have paid for itself in just over six years.

Mr and Mrs Bullen, who took over the estate in the late 1990s, needed to urgently replace the heating and hot water system in the popular wedding venue.

Because of the size of the property, the couple knew it would be costly as the tanks and pipes needed replacing.

“We then decided that we should look at more modern, innovative energy technologies,” Mrs Bullen said. “The financial outlay was going to be large and so it was important that we took the opportunity to choose a system that was going to be the right one, not just for now, but for the next 50 years.”

They found an article about Simon Howard, whose Castle Howard was the TV backdrop for Brideshead Revisited. He halved his fuel bill with the new technology by harnessing water energy in his lake.

Mrs Bullen added: “We had been led to believe that it was not feasible to use this type of renewable energy in an historic house such as ours, but it had worked at Castle Howard so I wanted to know how. It was clear from the article that Simon Howard completely believed in his renewable energy WSHP system and that he was a great advocate of the technology.

“Our annual Renewable Heat Incentive payment will be around £6,500 a year and combined with the significant saving we are making on oil costs, and taking into account the electricity costs of running the WSHP, our renewable energy solution will pay for itself in six and half years.

“The house has a constant temperature and we, and our tenants, are now warm all of the time. Not only are we saving money, we are operating Avington Park very much with future generations in mind as the reduction in our carbon footprint has been calculated at 44.6 tonnes per annum.”