RECLUSE IN A MANSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22164, 18 January 1934, Page 7

RECLUSE IN A MANSION

PEERESS’S STRANGE LIFE NEVER SEEN BY ANYBODY. Living in one of the most famous houses in England is a woman whom hardly anyone has seen since 1885. She is the Dowager Lady Annaly, once a society beauty and a friend of kings. As the Hon. Lilah Agar-Ellis Lady Annaly was one of society’s most beautiful women. In 1884 she married Lord Annaly. It was a brilliant wedding, and she had the world at her feet. Then in 1885, soon after the birth of her son, the present Lord Annaly, she became a recluse, and lived in a suite of rooms at Holdenby House, near Northampton. Since her husband’s death in 1922 Lady Annaly has continued to invite guests to her country home, but she never sees them. She remains in her rooms all day, but about midnight, when all the servants are in bed except her woman companion, she walks round her grounds and the countryside followed at a distance by her companion and a gamekeeper. Her seclusion is so strictly respected that the steward, her butler, and servants who have been there for years have never seen her. Lady Annaly visits her town house on rare occasions, travelling at night in a motor car with drawn blinds.

The few people who have seen her lately say she still retains much of her beauty. The villagers know her by her name, and the many gifts which frequently come to them from Holdenby House.