A member of the landed gentry worth £10 million was ordered out of his "ancestral home" by a judge today.

Anthony Arbuthnot Watkins Grubb must make way for his five children and former wife, Jennifer, who suffers from depression because of his "abusive, domineering and controlling" behaviour.

Lord Justice Wilson gave him just 14 days to leave Mayes House on the Mayes Estate at East Grinstead, Sussex, after refusing him permission to appeal against the occupation order made in the High Court Family Division.

The appeal judge said Mr Grubb had a "strong sensation of life-time stewardship of the estate which had been in his family for over a century.

"The sensation is in principle wholly admirable but unfortunately, as the (High Court) judge was required to investigate as a result of his defence of the suit for divorce, the sensation of stewardship has expanded within the husband's mind beyond all rational proportion."

The judge said Mr Grubb's stewardship ambitions "infected married life for many years and ultimately destroyed it".

Lord Justice Wilson repeated the findings of High Court judge Her Honour Judge Hughes QC that it was "worthwhile to note the length of time for which the husband has been trying to bully the wife into submission in relation not only to her financial claims following divorce in general but to her claims referable to accommodation in particular".

The appeal judge added: "From an early stage of the marriage, particularly when the wife conceived more children than the husband had apparently expected her to conceive, he had sought to insist that she should make an equal contribution to the educational costs of the children, albeit, if necessary, by initial borrowing from himself.

"So, if you please, he had purported to create a loan account in which he had recorded the increasing level of indebtedness on the part of the wife to him in that respect."

The judge said at one time Mr Grubb did not give his wife a key to the family home and when she returned home late from her book group, he locked her out for a time on three occasions.

"The response of the wife to the extraordinary degree of harassment to which the husband had thus subjected her was, with hesitation, regret and apprehension, to issue her petition for divorce."

The High Court judge had found that Mr Grubb's behaviour had left the wife suffering from depression and she needed separate accommodation.

Nicholas Cusworth QC, representing the husband, had argued that to exclude Mr Grubb from his own home would be a "draconian" measure.

Lord Justice Wilson said the Court of Appeal would never have accepted the husband's arguments.

"An occupation order is always serious, and no doubt can sometimes be particularly serious when it relates to a spouse's removal from what one might almost call his ancestral home."

But the judge said Mr Grubb had "massive resources with which to fund his comfortable accommodation elsewhere".

He could control the length of absence because his former wife had already agreed to move out when she had been found a suitable home for herself and her children.

The parties married in 1985 and the first of their children was born 23 years ago.

Lord Justice Wilson said: "Although the husband is no doubt as fond of all the children as is the wife, the fact is that his relationship with them, in particular perhaps with two or three of them, has been very strained."

He said the wife would need a home with up to six bedrooms like Mayes House, which stands at the centre of the Mayes Estate.

This had been the matrimonial home - although the family had moved to other properties on the estate at times - and the former couple still lived under the same roof, said the judge.

"For years the husband has been gravely concerned that the wife's increasing dissatisfaction with the marriage might lead to an award to her following divorce which would have a grave impact upon the assets of which he regards himself only as the steward.

"No doubt the wife is entitled to a substantial award, which I fear will cause the husband to suffer acute pain; but one feature of it is already clear, namely that it will not include Mayes House."

He said Mrs Grubb would not be making any claim against it and would move out once a divorce settlement had been agreed.