THE LONELIEST PEER.

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 18242, 16 July 1931, Page 4

THE LONELIEST PEER.

WITH SON IN EMPTY CASTLE. DOING THEIR OWN HOUSEWORK. A Ringwood (Hampshire) correspondent of the London Daily Mail writes:— In the midst of a glorious Hampshire estate to-day I found an earl and his heir living in simplicity in an almost empty castle, hoping that soon a purchaser may be found for their historic home. They are the Earl of Egmont and his 16-year-bld son, who just over tfwo years ago we're living: on a ranch in Alberta; Canada, before the title and estates changed hands in a romantic manner. Now they are like hermits, amid surroundings of stately splendour. Except for the companionship of his son, it would be true to say thai; the Earl of Egmont is the loneliest peer in England. When I reached the front door of the castle this afternoon, after a mile drive from the lodge gates, ihe windows were shuttered, but through the glass of the front door I could see the hall was void of furniture or pictures. At the far end through a half-open door geranium could be discerned in the conservatory, the only indication of--human activity ii> the building. For nearly half an hour I tried to make someone hear. The whole building was- lifeless, yet the lawns and flower-beds running from the rear of the building to the riverside were trim and gay wi!th flowers. The earl and his son attend to all their own domestic duties within the deserted castle. When I returned to the castle again they had returned from a ramble in the grounds. Presently the door was opened by the son. "The castle is not sold and that is all I can say," he told me. "No one has any right to call here without permission. If you want to see my father you must write and ask." As I left this determined youiv man, who has taken the role of protecting his father from v : feitors, he pushed home two massive bolts on the front door before retreating into the isolated castle, wh'toh looked more like a monastery than an ancestral home. The onlv thing that remains to tell of the slories of the past are the beautiful grounds.