National Trust History & Heritage
3 total works
Margaret Greville of Polesden Lacey, who styled herself 'Mrs Ronnie', rose from obscure and humble origins to become a fabulously wealthy and ambitious society hostess, traveling the world and acquiring a portfolio of movie stars, monarchs, maharajahs and millionaires.
Her long, rich and fascinating life of dark secrets, racy scandal and power- broking intrigue encompassed close relationships with royals from Edward Vii to George VI. But her fascination with charisma also led her to champion characters as diverse as Winston Churchill, Oswald Mosley, Mussoini and Hitler. No-one doubted her patriotism but some questioned her judgement.
King Edward VII, who commended her 'positive genius for hospitality', appreciated her discretion in his affair with her friend Alice Keppel. Mrs Ronnie intrigued with King George V and Queen Mary, and advanced the courtship of 'Bertie and Elizabeth' who honeymooned at her luxurious country house, Polesden Lacey in Surrey. She disapproved of the Prince of Wales and had a ringside view of the Abdication Crisis, becoming a valued supporter of the new King and Queen.
Mrs Ronnie was a complex and contradictory character and her astonishing rise from a straitened and obscure childhood to the position of 'favoured aunt' to the British Royal Family is a genuine 'rags to riches' tale.
The largely untold stories of innumerable, rather humble, lives spent ‘in service’ are lying just below the surface of many great houses; the physical evidence can be seen in surviving servants’ quarters, the material of their everyday life, even their uniforms and possessions.
This account provides a fascinating glimpse at who's who behind the scenes, from the cook, butler and housekeeper to the footmen, lady's maids, governesses and tutors, nannies and nursemaids. Giving a fascinating insight into the heirarchy within the servant's quarters – from the power-wielding cook to the ever-discreet butler – this guide describes how relationships were forged and changed as the gap between upstairs and downstairs was bridged.
Describing their typical working day as well as the holidays, entertainments and pastimes enjoyed on a rare day off, not to mention the whirl of the social season, this previously ‘unwritten history’ recalls vividly the nature of their lives below stairs.
National Trust houses are bursting with ghost stories. The spirits of former owners, staff, even pets haunt their former homes and walk hand-in-hand with those living there today. Simply walking into an historic house can be enough to make you shudder, such is the intensity of the sense of the past. The figure of Elizabeth, Duchess of Lauderdale wanders solemnly through Ham House in Surrey, sometimes haunting the Chapel, sometimes accompanied by the ghost of her beloved spaniel, while Anne Boleyn is reputed to drive up to Blicking Hall in Norfolk in a coach driven by a headless horseman, and carrying her own head in her lap. At Hinton Ampner in Hampshire the Ricketts family who lived there in the mid-eighteenth century spoke of 'something curious, something inexplicable about the house', with the whole staff's sleep interrupted by a cacophony of chilling shrieks, groans, muffled conversations, running footsteps and banging doors. At Lyveden New Bield in Northamptonshire, an isolated ghostly shell of an unfinished building, local people and National Trust staff have both glimpsed a long-faced, bearded gentleman at one of the upper bay windows, yet the building has no floors, so how could he be suspended at that height? The ruins of Corfe Castle in Dorset, Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland and Rievaulx Terrace and Temples in Yorkshire are similarly alive with ghoulish tales. This is a very special ghost book. Sian Evans has interviewed the people who work and live in the buildings today and gathered together information on sightings of ghosts that only they could provide, while her research into past ghost stories brings alive the characters of previous owners. Tracing the origins of the myths and legends that have grown up around mysterious old places, and comparing them with the very contemporary accounts of those people who actually spend their waking - and sometimes sleeping - hours there yields some surprising results. Most people love a ghost story, even if they claim not to believe in the supernatural. But for many staff, volunteers and tenants of the National Trust, the job is sometimes a matter of balancing the normal with the paranormal.