Countess: Why Althorp can feel a little bit dead

EARL SPENCER was not invited to his daughter Lady Amelia’s wedding in South Africa this week, and his Canadian wife, Karen, is trying to brighten up ancestral seat, Althorp.

She likes to fill the Northamptonshire stately home, where Princess Diana grew up, with flowers to counter its ‘dead’ and museum-like atmosphere.

‘It feels so different when you have flowers in this house,’ says Countess Spencer, 50, who is the third wife of historian Charles, 58.

‘The flowers bring the room to life because it can feel a tiny bit museum-y and it can feel a little bit dead. But when you get the flowers in there it brings the room to life in a different way.’