The Diary of A Dining-Out Man

From Virtual Victorian

From a volume of Bentley's Miscellany (London, 1841)- this piece by Albany Poyntz (i.e. Catherine Gore) other contributors to this volume included Ainsworth, Crowquill, Ingoldsby & Longfellow. She also wrote A World of Wonders (Richard Bentley, London 1845) - a polymathic work refuting popular superstitions with  chapters on Pope Joan, Wild Women, Sybils, Monstrous Births and Ventriloquism etc.,. The full text can be found at Project Gutenberg.

Catherine Gore (1799 - 1861) is best known for her many "silver-fork" novels, which depicted fashionable high society. In 1830, she published her first silver-fork novel, Women As They Are, or Manners of the Day, and then went on to write many more books in this popular genre that provided her with a considerable income. There is much on her at The Corvey Novels Project (Nebraska) She was known as a bright conversationalist, an attribute that also displayed itself in the dialogue in her novels. Her writing is often compared to Jane Austen's, particularly her descriptions of the "heartless society mother" in various novels. In this piece The Diary of A Dining-Out Man, which she writes as 'Albany Poyntz' the extreme worldliness of tone prefigures Saki. It is a world she would have known - she was herself at one time very rich but was swindled out of £20,000, and had to write several more society novels to recoup.

DIARY OF A DINING-OUT MAN.

BY ALBANY POYNTZ.

  So, here we are in the season again. — Goodness  be praised ! — Those country houses take too much  out of a man, in return for what he extracts from them. It is well enough in those where one has  the ear of the house, as well as the run of the house, — remaining a fixture, while successive parties of guests appear and disappear; for the  same bon-mots and good stories serve to amuse his  Grace on Friday, which were tried upon the country-neighbour party with success, the preceding Monday, — as inoculation was attempted upon criminals, before the royal family were submitted to the prick of the lancet. More particularly when the whole set has been renovated. It is a bore to have some single gentleman, or stationary souffre douleur cousin,

The Tragedy of Copped Hall

The effects of the First World War were wide and long lasting, not just for those who were directly involved in it, one way or another , but for the architectural heritage of Britain. The deaths of so many sons of the upper class meant that estates that had been run so successfully up to 1914 were plunged into uncertainty. Great mansions were sold off or demolished. A different fate befell one great house and its astonishing gardens in Essex, as some clippings found among the papers of the late Peter Haining, who must have passed the site regularly on his route to and from his Essex home, tell.

Today, for those driving clockwise along the M25 the roofless ruins of Copped Hall, situated on the edge of woodland just south-east of Epping, are an intriguing sight. For most of the War the mansion, which had replaced a more interesting Elizabethan house and gardens in 1753, was a cherished family home. The elaborate gardens, a late Victorian theatrical tour de force by C.E Kempe, better known for his stained glass designs, were remarkable enough to feature in a lengthy article in Country Life in 1910. But seven years later, on one night in November 1917 all was to change.

Visitor's Book for Calcot Park

In about 2007 we acquired  a collection of books from the estate a kinsman of the Heber-Percy family in a cottage close to the country house of the eccentric musical composer Lord Berners at Faringdon near Oxford. In the collection was this visitor's book (which later sold on the web for a low four figure sum..)

 VISITOR'S BOOK FOR CALCOT PARK AND HUNGER HILL (EARL OF ROSSLYN 1914-1935). Oblong 4to (13" x 10"). Handsome red grained full leather binding with coat of arms in gilt on cover, slightly rubbed and slightly stained but sound VG. About 60 leaves. The visitor's book from 2 country houses owned by the Earl of Rosslyn (1869-1939)- Calcot Park and Hunger Hill. 3 photographs of these imposing houses pasted to first page. The first part, at Calcot, runs from 1914-1918. The second, larger part at Hunger Hill from 1925-1935. Signatures from Calcot include Diana Wyndham, Lord Wemyss, Countess Sutherland, Blanche Somerset, Arthur Balfour, Joseph Joffre, Admiral Jelicoe, Dame Nellie Melba, George Robey, Horation Bottomley, J. M. Barrie, Raymond Poincare, Douglas Haig, Herbert Asquith, Eleanor Glyn, George Vth and Queen Mary (the last 13 all appear to have stayed over one weekend in the summer of 1916). The visitors to Hunger Hall combine the old grand Rosslyn friends and the Bright Young Things crowd of their son Hamish St. Clair Erskine (Erskine had been at Eton with Robert Byron and James Lees-Milne and was leader of a "thoroughly irresponsible set." His name cropped up in a Home Office report on the greatest Eton scandal of the day when the actress Tallulah Bankhead was rumoured to have held an orgy with Hamish and his friends in a hotel at Bray.) Erskine, a "reckless charmer", was engaged to Nancy Mitford- this came to nothing; he was the first of a series of unavailable men that she fell in love with. Visitors during this time included Lady Rosslyn's great friend and mentor R. H Bruce Lockhart almost every weekend, Tom Mitford, John Betjeman (seven times, sometimes with Penelope Chetwode), Alan Pryce Jones (4), Peter Watson (3), Robert Byron, Nancy Mitford (3), Nancy Beaton (5), James Lees-Milne and Alvilde Bridges (5), Randolph Churchill, Peggy Evans (4), David Tennant, Victor Rothschild (3), Honor Guinness, Anthony Blunt, Henry Yorke (ie Henry Green). Calcot Park is now a Golf club.

Duleep Singh—Prince of Suffolk

A rare find—a letter written in English from the last Sikh Maharajah of India. Duleep Singh (1838 – 93), came to power at the age of 5, with his mother as regent. When she was deposed and jailed, he was made a ward and finally was exiled to England in 1853 at the age of 15, having been converted to Christianity. On his arrival, he was lionised in the London salons and became a particular favourite of Queen Victoria. He lived in Roehampton and Wimbledon for a while and then bought estates in Yorkshire and Scotland, where he was known locally as the Black Prince of Perth. His mother having joined him in 1861, he was now firmly established as a country gentleman, with the reputation as the fourth best shot in the land. His final purchase was of a 17,000 acre estate at Elveden, near Thetford, where he proved to be an excellent landlord and a generous local benefactor. Though he later died in Paris, he chose to be buried here.

Elveden was an ideal purchase for Dukleep. Just eighty miles from London, its open situation in the heart of Breckland enabled him to pursue the life of a hunting and shooting squire while remaining in touch with metropolitan life. The deep forest may even have reminded him of the jungle he had left behind.

He continued to visit his Scottish estates at and it is from Loch Kennard Lodge that he wrote this letter, which is dated in pencil July 27th 1868 by its recipient, John Norton, the celebrated Gothic architect, who had just completed the astonishing Tyntesfield, near Bristol. It is characteristic of the ostentatious Duleep, then aged just 30, that he should engage one of the most trendy architects in the land to remodel the rather old fashioned Elveden Hall. In the letter Duleep acknowledges receipt of the latest plans of the proposed alterations to the Hall and asks Norton to send the earlier ones so that he can 'compare the accommodation and their costs '.

According to Pevsner, Duleep enlarged a Georgian building of moderate size into 'an Oriental extravaganza unparalleled in England'. Though the external style was Italianate, the interior incorporated  'a central domed hall with a glass lantern, with the walls, pillars and arches  covered with the closest Indian oriental detail, all made of white Carrara marble and carved in situ by Indian craftsmen'. Work was completed in 1870. In 1899 – 1903, following Duleeps’s death, Lord Iveagh of Guinness fame, enlarge the Hall still further. Today, Elveden Hall remains in the Guinness family, and though empty and a shadow of its former glory, it remains  a popular location for filming. Among the movies shot here was Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.  [RMH]

The Man who sold Alton Towers

Charles Chetwyn Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury (1860 – 1921) was this man, and it turns out that he was a bit of a cad. Having inherited the title at the age of 16, he proceeded at the age of 19 to elope with an older, wealthy, married woman, by which he had two children. As a commoner his wife was never accepted by the aristocracy, whereas the Earl went on to receive several honours, including one from the Queen. The couple separated in 1896, a few months after this letter was written, and Shrewsbury decamped to Ingestre Hall, twenty or so miles south of Alton Towers.

Perhaps Lady Shrewsbury felt her husband was spending more time with his sporting passions and business interests than he was with her. He was, after all, potty about  polo and the letter addressed to ‘ B ‘ was probably sent to Algernon Burnaby, one of his regular polo pals at Alton Towers. When he moved to Ingestre he established the Staffordshire Polo Club there. He also owned a hansom cab service—the vehicles being emblazoned with ‘ S. T ‘ for Shrewsbury and Talbot. He was the first to have those cabs that operated in London and Paris fitted with noiseless tyres. In addition, he was a motoring pioneer. In 1903 his company, Clement Talbot Ltd, began to import from France what became the ‘Talbot ‘car.

According to the official History, Alton Towers was sold to a group of local businessmen in 1920. A year later, The Earl died and the title was inherited by his grandson, his own son, Viscount Ingestre, having died during the War. In 1924 the grounds began to be developed as a tourist attraction and the dowager Lady Shrewsbury was booted out of the house she had known for 44 years and re-housed, probably at Ingestre. She lived on, possibly more accepted by now, until 1940.

After the Second World War Alton Towers fell into decay, but by now the vast grounds had become a popular resort. It was only after 1973 that the Alton Towers amusement park, with its terrifying rides and spectacular features, came into being. The ruins of the house are now part of the Alton Towers Experience.[RR]

The real Downton Abbey

Every fan of ITV’s Downton Abbey will know that is filmed at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, the ancestral home of the Earls of Carnarvon. The third Earl built the present Castle, but it was his son, the fourth Earl (1831 – 90), who in his second term as a Tory Secretary of State for the Colonies achieved notoriety as the man who, through his policies of the enforced confederation of South Africa, indirectly caused the Boer Wars.

Earl of Carnarvon ('Twitters')

Carnarvon was clearly not a man to be trifled with. In January 1864 he had a number of fliers printed and circulated to his neighbours, informing them that 'the want of definite regulations for  admission to or through' his park had obliged him to revise the 'rules'. One of those who received a flier* was the Rector of Highclere, Philip Menzies Sankey, a graduate of Oxford who claimed among his friends, the influential proto-aesthete, Walter Pater. Presumably Rev. Sankey had been obliged to traverse the park in order to get to his church and so a copy of the new 'rules' that governed access would have been useful. Unfortunately, Sankey’s copy of the amended rules, together with his pass-card, which were originally included with the flier, are now missing, which means that we don’t know what these new rules were. However,  I’m sure that 'Twitters', Carnarvon’s nickname on account of his various nervous tics, was scrupulously fair to his neighbours.

Today, of course, the impecunious current Earl of Carnarvon has the well known musical composer Baron Lloyd-Webber of nearby Sydmonton House as his very wealthy neighbour. And it was Lord Sydmonton who, not long ago, offered to buy Highclere Castle and its land to prevent the Earl from building houses between the Castle and his home. Not surprisingly, the Earl stoutly refused the offer and ever since relations between the aristo and the arriviste have remained strained.[RMH]


* Dear Mr. Sankey. So much inconvenience has of late been experienced that the want of definite regulations for admission to or through the Park, that I have found it necessary to revise the existing rules.

I have endeavoured so to frame them, that whilst
henceforward preventing all confusion and irregularity, they
shall at the same time not interfere with any of the facilities
which may contribute to the personal convenience of my
Neighbours, and which it has always given me so much satis-
faction to afford them.

I have enclosed a copy of the revised rules, and it will
give me much pleasure, in accordance with No. 5, to place a
pass-card at your disposal, if you will bc good enough to let
me know your wishes.

I enclose you at once a card [?]--- [Believe me?] Yrs truly Carnarvon