AN ARISTOCRAT whose family owns Arundel Castle says it is “bonkers” the estate was left to her uncle rather than her mother just because he is a man.

Lady Kinvara Balfour’s mother, Lady Tessa, is the eldest child of the 17th Duke of Norfolk, whose seat is the medieval, Grade I listed castle.

But when he died in 2002 the property went to Lady Tessa’s brother Edward, under the Middle Age system of primogeniture, the right of the firstborn male child to inherit the family estate.

Lady Kinvara, 39, is now calling for the system to be overhauled, denouncing it as “archaic, mad, and absolutely mad”.

She told Town and Country magazine: “It runs through our DNA. Downton Abbey highlighted what I’ve seen all my life: the daughter is a disappointment. I’ve had primogeniture rubbed in my face from both sides of my family.”

She added: “My mother is the eldest daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. She’s a girl. I appreciate that to run Arundel Castle and all its land and all its game, its crops, its farms, is a huge, huge, job.

“But it’s a huge job for anybody, so give it to the woman.

“She’ll be as entrepreneurial as any man can be.”

Primogeniture was also applied to the British monarchy until October 2011, but changed so that the firstborn of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, would inherit the crown whatever their gender.

A distant relation of Anne Boleyn, Lady Kinvara spent some of her childhood at the castle, built in 1067, and works as a playwright, producer and writer. She continued: “How can women win?

“We are this bonkers little country that still has all these antiquated rules.

“I joke that the House of Lords should be the House of Lords and Ladies, or just the House of Peers. But then, some of those peers are hereditary and that goes through the male line.”

Lady Kinvara, who married her ex-husband Count Riccardo Lanza at the castle in 2009, conceded that her uncle has to work extremely hard to maintain the property.

She said: “He can’t just wake up and flog a Canaletto on eBay because he feels like having a day off. He works so hard.

“I don’t know a single English man or woman who wants to buy one. If we are talking about the survival of the financially fittest, the aristocracy hasn’t got a hope in hell.”

Factfile

Arundel Castle has been passed around among the aristocracy since it was built in 1067.

William the Conqueror first gave it as a token of thanks to his cousin, Roger de Montgomery, declared the first Earl of Arundel.

After his death, it reverted to the crown under Henry I, then passing to the Aubigny family until 1243 and the FitzAlans until 1580.

The Fitzalan line ended when Mary FitzAlan married the fourth Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard.

The crown seized the castle after his execution for treason in 1572, but later returned to his heirs.

It has been the seat of the Duke of Norfolk ever since, although not their preferred residence.