A DOUBLE LIFE.

Mataura Ensign, 24 March 1911, Page 7

A DOUBLE LIFE.

DISCOVERY AFTER DEATH. HERMIT'S TREASURE-HOUSE, A wonderful story of the double life of a wealthy and eccentric country gentleman has come to light since the death a few weeks ago of Mr Bering of Lockley, Welwyn, Herts, in his 80th year. He lived as a bachelor and a recluse and left property worth over a quarter of a million pounds, including a veritable museum at Lockley, a large part of the village of Welwyn, and three houses at Brighton.

It is now known that Mr Dering was married more than 50 years ago at Brighton under another name. His wife lived in one of his houses there, and he stayed there periodically until she died in 1894. His daughter married in Brighton and lived there with her husband, and was visited from time to time by her father.

Although the valuation of his property is not yet complete, nor that of the collection of books, furniture, pictures, statuary, and other possessions, of whose extent no one but himself was aware, Mr Dering left estate worth over £250,000, the greater part of which goes to his daughter. Living in the magnificent Georgian mansion of Lockley, at Welwyn, in the middle of a well-wooded park of a thousand acres, which came to him from Sir George Shee, his mother's father, Mr Dering was a very clever mechanic and inventor, and very eccentric. Fifty years ago his father died, and since then Mr Dering, believing that the world was then at its best and the country at the height of its glory, objected to change of every kind. Carriages Without Horses. Though he had five carriages in his stables, he kept no horses for the last 50 years, but he still had a coachman until ten years ago. In the coachhouse to-day are two travelling coaches of early Victorian days, swung on lea- | ther, one painted bright yellow, with the coat of arms and family crest upon it. Inside, thick with dust, are the leather upholstery and gold braid and brocade exactly as they were when last they were used more than half a century ago.

For the last ten years Mr Dering's household consisted of his butler and the butler's wife. Inside the house pictures are stacked three and four deep, face to the wall. Among them are an undoubted Holbein, and an uncertain Fra Bartolommeo, and what else no one knows yet. The large rooms are filled with marble statuary, mostly originals from the great Paris Exhibition of 1562. Among them is a large symbolic group called "The Sleep or Sorrow and the Dream of Jay," by Monti, for which Mr Dering paid £2OOO at the exhibition. There is a delightful figure of a girl about to dive, "The Bather," and there are also Dresden vases and gold and enamel clocks. Everything—pictures, pottery, statues, furniture—is covered with the dust of years. The front door is overgrown with creeper reaching^up to the stone coat of arms, which still preserves some of its gold and blue paint. The coachhouse, surmounted with a big clock tower, is covered with thick ivy and from the face of the clock to the ground. The hedges in the park are uncut, the drives uncared for, and the terraces unmown. Hobby of Tight-rope Walking. In his early years Mr Dering used to exercise great hospitality. Blondin, the tight-rope waker, was one of his friends and taught him his art. When Mr Dering entertained the villagers and his tenants he once had a rope stretched above the water in front of the house and walked across it, and wheeled across in a barrow the more venturesome of his guests. | Latterly, however, he grew to dislike all connection with the outer world. He would not have sheep or cattle in the park for fear that lie might hear the bleating and lowing of the animals. He objected to the church having a chime of bells lest he should hear them. Finally he diverted the main road, which ran near his house, and built a new one, making a cutting 30 feet deep and 300 yards long through a hill, so that the road was effectually hidden from the house. This undertaking cost £20,000. One of the few men living who knew Mr Dering at Welwyn and saw him in his hime says that he had a charming personality and manner. He continued to the last his scientific studies, especially in electricity. The house is now to be reopened and refitted for Mr Dering's daughter and her husband to live in.