Arundells In 1985, at the age of 69, the former British Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, bought Arundells, partly because of its proximity to the Solent, where he sailed. He engaged the renowned interior designer, Derek Frost, whose brief was to modernise the house in a contemporary fashion while paying respect to the Queen Anne original. Frost designed display cabinets to house Sir Edward's many trophies and awards. He also designed a number of custom pieces of furniture for the house that remain there to this day. It was the first time in his life that Sir Edward had owned a
Arundells to the public as a place of historic interest. The ground-floor rooms at Arundells were opened to the public in 2008 and received about 50,000 visitors in the first six years to 2013 (a figure that has since gone up to around 80,000). In spring 2014, the trustees opened some of the first-floor rooms for the first time, including Heath's study, where he worked at a desk which originally belonged to an earlier Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. The exhibits on the first floor now include political and other memorabilia, such as Heath's ministerial boxes and personal banner from the