From somewhere deep within the labyrinthine interior of St. Catherine’s Court, a youthful voice can be heard calling: “Mom! Mom! Jane Seymour smiles. “Darling, it’s Mummy,” she calls back. “We’re in England now.” It’s a light-hearted but telling exchange. The chatelaine of the beautiful late-Tudor mansion is in residence for her regular summer break. The actress may spend the bulk of the year in Malibu on America’s West Coast (“My career is there an that’s where my younger children go to school”) but there is something quintessentially English about one-time Bond girl Jane, best loved for her hit 1990s TV series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The 56-year old has described St. Catheine’s which is four miles from Bath, as her “favorite place on earth,” but with she’s not there, St. Catherine’s is available for hire and for private events. It doesn’t always run smoothly- a group of neighbors recently took great exception to her estate’s (successful) application for 24- hour liquor license for her paying guests. Around 50 local residents marched up the mile-long lane to St. Catherin’s to hand in a 200 signature petition. They are concerned about what they say is the increased traffic and noise generated by events at the estate, and their legal challenge to the license will be heard in November. The action prevents Jane from discussing the matter here. However, she and her husband James Keach have said in a statement that they were “astonished and hurt’ by “malicious and inaccurate” reports in the media about the license. They added that there was no record of any complaints being made by residents to the local authority about activities at St. Catherine’s Court since Jane purchased it more than 20 years ago,. They also noted: “We do have a 24-hour license but this simply allows us to serve mimosas at breakfast, wine with meals, a beer at 3 a.m. when an American game is on satellite, or musical entertainment whenever our guests require it. We’ve never had all-night parties and don’t plan to.” In fact, they said, the last large event at St. Catherine’s was a party to celebrate Jane’s mother’s 90th birthday more than three years ago
