SIXTY YEARS AGO

Evening Star, Issue 22973, 2 June 1938, Page 14

SIXTY YEARS AGO

A DUKE'S MEMORIES STRANGE HOUSE AT WELBEGK BRILLIANT SOCIETY Baron Bentick, the Burgomaster of Maastricht, attached his son, Hans, to William, Prince of Orange, as a page. The prince became fond of the young man, and, having himself become King of England, gave to Hans the old English title of Earl of Portland. Thenceforth the family flourished. The second earl was made a duke; the third duke was twice Prime Minister, and, having married the daughter of the Duke of Devonshire, took in 1801 the additional surname and arms of Cavendish; the fourth duke married a daughter of General Scott, and with her acquired a vast property; the fifth duke was,eccentric and hid himself away from all sight. _ ■ . He was succeeded by his first cousin once removed, the-.,sixth and present duke, and the author of an imposing volume, ‘ Men, Women, and Things,’ writes the Viscountess Dunedin in ‘ John o’ London’s Weekly.’ In. it he gives a graphic picture of life as he hoe known it since, as a young officer of the Coldstreams, he made his memorable journey to Welbeck nearly 60 years ago to take possession of his fantastic inheritance. Accompanied by all the family, including one poor child who was_ dangerously ill, they left London in midwinter, and the duke’s sister supplies an admirable description of their dramatic arrival at Worksop station on a dark, windy evening. “ Outside,” she writes, “ there was a little crowd of people waiting to see the ‘young duke’ arrive. Their white faces and dark clothes caught the light of the old dim oil lamps as they pressed round the door of the very old-fashioned carriage. My little _ brother, Charlie, who was ill with peritonitis, had to be lifted carefully into a second carriage. Then came what seemed to me a long, dreary drive to Welbeck till at last we arrived at the house. “ The front drive was a grass-grown morass covered with builders’ rubbish, and to enable the carriage to reach the front door they had put down temporary planks. The hall inside was without a floor, and temporary boardings had been laid down to enable us to enter. The late duke was so absorbed with his vast work of building and digging out the underground rooms and tunnels that he was oblivious of anything else. He pursued this hobby without any idea of beauty, a lonely, self-isolated man. His love of building tunnels came perhaps from an exaggerated desire for privacy. Even round the garden of Harcourt House, where he lived in London, he erected high glass screens so that he could not be overlooked; and when he travelled he never left nis own carriage, but had it placed on a railway truck on the train and kept the blinds drawn.” ROOMS PAINTED PINK. Next day the family began a voyage of discovery of this surrealist house. “ The rooms were all painted pink with parquet floors, and all bare and without furniture except that almost every room had a * convenience ’ in the corner, quite exposed and not sheltered in any way. The drawing rooms were high. The late duke had abolished a floor of bedrooms to make them more lofty. . . An underground passage led up through trap door into the building that had originally been William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle’s riding; school, now lined by the late duke with mirrors and with crystal chandeliers hanging from every corner in the raftered roof. The roof itself was painted to represent, the bright rosy hues at sunset. ... “In the great kitchen the duke’s perpetual chicken was always roasting

on a spit, so that whenever he should ■ring for it one should be ready roasted and in a fit state for eating. A branch tunnel from the kitchen led to the great underground rooms. Another tunnel led to the stables about half a mile distant. Then there was the great tunnel about a mile and a-quarter long through which was a carriage drive to Worksop, quite large enough for two carriages to pass. Overhead windows threw a ghostly light down at regular intervals.” Among the late duke’s strange eccentricities were some of a curiously distorted kindliness, such as providing donkeys for his employees to rid to and from work and umbrellas to shelter them from rain. In the pleasure garden was a large skating rink so that his housemaids could skate. Indeed, when he found any of them sweeping and cleaning he used to send them off to put on their skates. MAKING IT HABITABLE. It is small wonder that the idea of inhabiting this nightmare house at first appalled the young duke, but helped by his devoted stepmother, he bravely tackled the task of making the eccentric creation a human habitation. And before long it had become a normal, happy home, the scene of many brilliant gatherings, where the kind and genial duke and his muchloved duchess have long ruled_ benevolently and wisely over their great estates. It is a strange contrast to this age of mechanised democracy to read this chapter of social history that the duke writes of with such simplicity and sincerity, interspersed with many little personal anecdotes of his daily life. “ It is my custom,” he relates, “ to read the first Lesson at the morning service on Sundays, and a note of the chapter js sent to me the evening before, written on one of the pink forms which are used here for delivering telephone messages. Many of these forms reach me during the day, and one Sunday I ’put the wrong paper into my pocket, for when standing at the Lectern I read with horror, ‘ 450 partridges ’ —our bag of the day before. However, I kept my head, opened the Bible at the marker, and read the first chapter I saw. LOVELY WOMEN OF THE PAST. The book is so well illustrated with the portraits of a number of the beautiful women of fashion of half a century ago that one cannot well contradict the duke’s diffidently expressed opinion that “ though there are perhaps a greater number of pretty women to-day, I do not think there are any such beautiful women as there were in those days.” And he points out that these lovely, leisured ladies, who adorn the pages, owed nothing to “ beauty parlour tricks.” One can well imagine how glamorous they must have looked, many wearing magnificent jewels, at the Court balls at Buckingham Palace, and at those of all the great houses of London, waltzing to the strains of the celebrated dance bands of the day. The duke awards the palm to Vienna and Budapest for the most beautiful music and the most exquisite dancing of the intoxicating, if strenuous, Viennese waltz. He relates one charming incident of an Irish ball that the Lord Lieutenant had promised to attend. An old lady with a very pretty grand-daughter was approached by a young man who asked, with a bow, “ May I have the pleasure of a dance with your grand-daughter?” “You may not, young fellow,” was the reply, “ I am keeping her dry for His Excellency.” It is almost impossible to recognise in the Hyde Park we know to-day, Rotten Row, as the Duke of Portland describes it when “ during the fashionable hour, everyone rode the best-look-ing hacks they could afford to keep, many of the ladies followed at a respectful distance by a groom dressed in livery with a high hat and cockade, while many of those who did not ride sat on chairs facing the Row and came to talk to their mounted friends over the rails. It was a most enjoyable way of meeting one’s friends, though an Austrian diplomat, an assiduous but not a skilful rider, with whom a friend attempted to converse, was heard to say: “ Please go awayl Can’t you see I’m busy riding?” ROYAL VISITORS. A long stream of guests have enjoyed the gracious hospitality of Welbeck, and all the Portlands’ houses, among them many of tho crowned heads of Europe—Edward VII. and Queen Alexander, King George and Queen Mary, King Alfonso of Spain, Carlos of Portugal, King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, and many more. Prince Henry of Prussia came in 1911, when he headed a tour of the combined German Motor Clubs through the Midlands, “ Prince Henry,” writes the Duke, “ said he hoped the tour would promote good feeling between England and Germany, but, personally, I was inclined to doubt it, as all that the passers-by saw of the visitors was the blinding cloud of dust raised by their motors.” Many are the famous men and women who have taken part in the house parties at Welbeck. “The_ moment one arrives,” writes one distinguished guest, “ and the beautiful golden gates shut one in, one suddenly feels safe and happy. One is enveloped in an atmosphere of love and kindness.” And another lifelong friend and frequent guest, writing of many happy visits, says: “I don’t think that anyone can ever have been with Winnie and Portland without receiving a new impulse to kindness, because kindness has always shone out of everything they say and do, and the impression never wavered that they will take any trouble in the world to help other people.” That is true to the motto that the Duke of Portland claims as his favourite: “ Live, let live, help to live.”