Why was upkeep that expensive? Would you be maintaining the entire estate as a perfectly manicured garden?

What would be the point in buying one and letting the gardens go, not maintaining a stable and all your neighbors laughing behind your back.

"He doesn't have even a single thoroughbred stallion...pffft"

that actually sounds like a lot of fun.

In addition to the points mentioned, upkeep is really continued development that must be performed within historically set constraints. I found this short video about the work at Euston Hall interesting—though Grafton inherited the estate, he came from the music industry in Nashville as a relative outsider with an eye for costs and revenue. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hypmo53fWfw

That number sounds like it covers salaries for the help.

Live-in housekeeping is around £50k a year for a couple - not bad for living rent-free on a nice estate - although I used to know someone who provided house-keeping for much less in return for not having to pay for rent and food. So cheaper options are possible.

Gardening is maybe £25-30k/yr, unless the estate is absolutely huge.

Heating will cost a lot in the UK. So will maintenance, especially if there's significant land involved. Roads, fences, walls, drains, sewers, and so on are all more expensive than most people realise, and large estates are usually listed, so there are expensive restrictions and maintenance obligations.

But I'm not quite seeing how that would add to up £500k for a £1.5m estate - which would be fairly small, even with the way prices were back then. I'd have expected something closer to £100k to £200k.

A friend of mine (who lives in a house of a much smaller scale) spends £2000 a year on gravel alone for his drive. Then he either needs to spend weeks spreading or pay someone to to do the same. Once you have a lot of something, things sure get expensive.

On a similar note - say he wanted to replace his doors Now he won't just want to use form £100 from the hardware shop, so realistically will be looking at £600+ for nice handmade bespoke internal doors. And then a future £100 for the door furniture, maybe £100 to get each painted and prepared and maybe £100 for the fitting. Before you know it looking at £1000ish a door. He had over 25 doors, and this was 'only' a 6 bed house... yes you aren't replacing these every year, but just an example of one of the costs.