After a dismal start to the season, the owners of Britain’s historic houses and gardens are pinning their hopes on the weather im-proving soon. Alongside them will be entrepreneur Eldon Robson: the public’s thirst for heritage is re- energising Fentimans, his family’s soft-drinks business, after a winter sleep that lasted a quarter of a century.

The business went into cold storage in 1970 after its fermented ginger beers and shandies lost out to mass-produced colas and fizzy drinks. But by the mid-1990s people were searching for more distinctive alternatives. Mr Robson saw his opportunity and resurrected his family’s 90-year-old company in 1994.