Kiwi Kevin Percy claims Harry Potter castle

DOMINION POST GRAPHICS

DREAMS OF DUKEDOM: Kevin Percy believes there's a good chance he's been cheated of his rightful inheritance, including 700-year-old Alnwick Castle in Northumberland.

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A Napier antiques dealer has claimed that his family are the rightful heirs to one of Britain's most famous dynasties, which owns the castle used in the Harry Potter movies.

Kevin Percy, 74, believes his family was cheated out of inheriting the Earl of Northumberland's massive estate, now conservatively valued at $685m.

He has started a bold bid asking British authorities, including the Queen, to exhume the bodies of two suspected relatives for DNA tests, which he says would prove or disprove his claim. The two men died in 1560 and 1716.

His bid targets one of Britain's most celebrated noble families, which dominated the Middle Ages. The earldom owns nearly 50,000 hectares of land in Britain.

Alnwick Castle, the family home in Northumberland, northern England, which celebrated its 700th anniversary this week, was used to film the Hogwarts scenes in the Harry Potter movies and appears in the film Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett, and the television series Blackadder.

The family's London mansion, Syon Park, beside the Thames, has appeared in films including The Madness of King George and Gosford Park.

Family members have included Harry Hotspur in the 14th century, the inspiration for Shakespeare's Henry IV character, and Thomas Percy, one of the ringleaders in the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords in 1605.

Kevin Percy is a former New Zealand hockey representative and played at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

He and his family have spent 12 years and more than $30,000 on the project. A professional British genealogist, Di Clements, was hired and Mr Percy has taken her results and his investigations to London's College of Arms, the organisation that keeps official records of family trees not open to the public.

"I'm 74 and I can think of nothing worse than going to my grave without knowing I've done my best for my family and our bloodline," Mr Percy told The Dominion Post.

"I and my New Zealand family are not trying to cheat and deceive. In the end this claim will be decided one way or the other in a geneticist's laboratory."

His family have narrowed their search to two men who carried the Louvain-Percy bloodline – a line thought to have ended in 1670 when the 11th Earl of Northumberland died with no male heir.

One skeleton that Mr Percy wants exhumed is a descendant of Thomas Percy, a co-conspirator of Guy Fawkes. The other was a younger brother of a previous earl.

Mr Percy believes DNA from the remains of either man will prove he carries their bloodline and show that his family were the victims of a high-level conspiracy. He has learnt that a page from the College of Arms' records that could have established whether he is descended from the gunpowder plotter was ripped out hundreds of years ago.

With millions of dollars potentially at stake, Mr Percy concedes he risks ridicule if his family claim is proved to be wrong.

"If the old male DNA line is not proven to exist – and it would take only one unfaithful Percy wife to terminate the true male line – I'll accept the brickbats and ridicule with grace."

The two bodies he seeks to exhume are both buried in Cambridge, one at the university and the other at a city cemetery. Mr Percy has written to Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons for support with the exhumation and has been referred to the coroner. He has also written to Cambridge University, but has yet to receive a response.

This month he contacted the current family head, Ralph Percy, the 12th Duke of Northumberland, advising of his plans.

A spokeswoman for the duke told The Dominion Post his only comment was: "It is not unusual to hear such claims, as they crop up every few years."