3 ms·

Not dissimilar to the rotting châteaus in Europe. Drastically expensive to maintain and modernise. The UK seems to be able to use tourism to maintain their stat

• ramraj07 4y ago
  The difference here is that these are not royalty, just an entire community (a caste) of people who made the money by trade. Every chettiyar I know still has their “big house” in karaikudi though I assume these are not as opulent as these old mansions (most of them spend at least a month in these places every year). The interesting part is how most of them are indistinguishable wealth wise from other community folks even though they clearly started with great wealth a few generations back.
• bombcar 4y ago
  Many of those stately manor homes used to house entire villages, because they'd have some noble, his family, his extended family, and the entire support staff and their families, too. As modernization took over, the number of people needed dwindled - some of them had hundreds of residents at their peak. Nowadays a single family could provide the entire support staff for a manor; and rapid vehicle transportation means you don't even need to do all the maintenance, you can call a repairman from a nearby city.