Aristocrat to empty her family mausoleum in order to sell her home Max's grave is very grand and has steps which lead down to it and are lit. James was so little, his is just tiny slate stones. Lady Christine had originally planned to permanently fence off the burial area in the castle grounds to allow her and family members to visit the graves. Details included in literature from estate agents Knight Frank show she wanted to sell off the property while retaining a right of access to the plots. However a hearing on her application to exhume the bodies is set to take place at Duns Sheriff Court in due course. The A-listed castle boasts a main hall, inner hall, gallery, drawing room, dining room, library, boudoir, small dining room, breakfasting kitchen, billiards room, domestic offices, 17 bedrooms, and nine bathrooms. Lady Christine told how she wants to see the turreted pile, which comes with a 6,000-acre estate, turned into a hotel and is currently overseeing maintenance work as she awaits permission to move the graves. I wanted to open Ayton up to a bigger market. It shouldn't be a family home any more, in this day and age it should be a hotel," she said. These days people wouldn't know how to live in a castle or a large house. The Norwegian-born aristocrat triggered a scandal in the 1980s over her unusual domestic arrangements. At the age of 22, she had married Sir Eric de la Rue, who was 36 years her senior. She later began an affair with David Liddell-Grainger, who was a friend of her husband. She began to split her time between Mr Liddell-Grainger's home at Ayton Castle, and her husband's mansion. At the time she said: "There is no bitterness between any of us. It has all been amicable. I love them both in different ways. When Sir Eric became too ill to look after himself, she moved him into the castle and cared for him until his death in 1989. Lady Christine subsequently married Mr Liddell-Grainger and she and their son Henry, 28, inherited Ayton Castle after his death aged 76 in 2007. The couple's son Max died in 1999 just four weeks short of his 14th birthday after a battle with cancer. Lady Christine's decision to sell the castle has horrified Mr Liddel-Grainger's children from his first marriage, including Ian Liddell-Grainger, the Conservative MP for Bridgwater & West Somerset. Speaking last year, he said: "My father would be heartbroken too. He adored the castle and estate. Ayton was his life, his joy and his love. To now see it being sold off on what appears to be some sort of whim is truly awful.