In the beginning ……..
I made an early arrival into this world in 1927 at my parents’ London home in Mansfield Street. I was the last of their five children, my three brothers and one sister being born between 1912 and 1922. My father was the 6th Marquess of Lansdowne, inheriting the title in 1927 from his father, and, prior to her marriage, my mother was Elizabeth Caroline Hope daughter of Sir Edward and Lady Hope. Everyone always called her Elsie.
My early childhood memories are of a privileged and happy life centred around my nursery, my Nanny and, of course, my Mother. Our lives were divided between Bowood House in Wiltshire, our London home in Mansfield Street and the Ireland house, Derreen in County Kerry. My father particularly liked Derreen for the fishing.
My Nanny was Dorothy Dale – I think she was about 19 when she started looking after my sister Kitty and later my brothers until they went away to school around 9 years old. They called her Doton although my mother always called her Dorothy. When I grew up she went on to look after my sister Kitty’s children so she was with the family through generations. She never married despite being very pretty and having several admirers. I loved my nursery and adored Nanny. She slept in the night nursery with me and we had our meals in the day nursery although when I was around 7 years old I would go downstairs to join the family for lunch. I would see my Mother every morning when she was getting dressed and again after tea when she would read to me or we would play games. This was ‘my time downstairs with Mummy’. I played a lot on my own quite happily. The big house in Mansfield Street had a basement kitchen, night and day nurseries and a Governess’s room with servants’ quarters at the very top. Nanny would take me into the park where there was a children’s lake and boating and there would be a social gathering of Nannies! I didn’t like parties when I was very young – I was much too shy. Life in London was much more social before the war and after I was about 6 I was less shy and grew to quite like parties with lots of going out to tea and parties with conjurors and such like. I went to dancing classes and my Mother thought gym classes would do me good so I went to those as well. There was a private residents’ garden near the house with a sandpit and swings. I recall the summers were hot in London and I longed for Bowood to run free. My Mother always took me to Marshall & Snelgrove for my clothes and my shoes were bought at a wonderful shop called Daniel Neale which had an x-ray machine, thought to be very advanced for the 1930s. Nanny made my nighties herself.
Childhood at Bowood
My schooling first started with Nanny who taught me to read and for a short time my Mother arranged for me to join Roger and Audley Money-Kyrle at Whetham. Our teacher was a sister, I believe, of the brilliant organist at St Mary’s Church, Calne – a Mr Pullein. A groom would take me over to Whetham on my pony Toodles and I believe I returned home by car. I also shared lessons with Rory McNeile from Nonsuch for a while. Later on, from when I was around 7, I was taught by governesses at home with lessons in the schoolroom. One governess was Miss Barton who I called Barbie. She was a very nice lady but had rather a cross face! I then had a French governess who was quite eccentric – mad as a hatter, in fact!
During these years, family life alternated between London, Ireland and Bowood depending on the season. We would have twice-yearly spells in London, summer holidays in Ireland and always Christmas at Bowood. The family would move lock, stock and barrel. I loved being at Bowood for the freedom of the grounds. I had a fixed wheel tricycle and pedalled about all over the place. As soon as I stopped pedalling, the bike stopped and was quite difficult to control. One day I finished up in one of the immaculate flower beds making three wheel grooves. I was terrified Mr Knight, the Head Gardener, would see them. He was a wonderful gardener and we became friends in later years! We would always travel to Bowood by train from Paddington and the chauffeur would meet us at Chippenham Station. One of the family cars was a Rolls Royce and there was something about the smell of the upholstery that always made me feel sick. I can still smell it today. My Mother would take me to the dentist in Bath in it and I was always travel sick. So not only did I have to endure going to the dentist but also be sick as well!
Growing up in a family such as mine meant us all living happily in our own sort of ‘compartment’. Girls stayed at home with nannies and governesses and the boys went off to school. Our parents’ lives were another ’compartment’. At certain times of the year, all the ‘compartments’ came together. In the late 1930s there were house parties in the Big House at Bowood and my brother Charlie’s Coming of Age Ball was a big event. I was about 11 and could have gone but I was much too shy and chose to spend the night in London with my sister’s children. My recollections of the Big House are of the Dining Room with its beautiful Robert Adam fireplace and décor and of the India Room. My grandfather, the 5th Marquess, had been Viceroy of India and the relics he brought home were displayed in this room. I particularly liked the ivory palace on its stand.
My memory of my father, who died in 1936 when I was 9, is of a very kind, shy man who enjoyed delving into family history, writing and editing books on our history, especially the Irish side. I recall once having a bad cold and, as his dressing room was near the nursery, he brought along some of his large handkerchiefs and gave them to Nanny saying, “Here, I think Elizabeth could do with these”. On other occasions, he went to great lengths to explain things to me and how they worked.
I recall watching the 1937 Coronation of King George VI from a window of a flat at the corner of South Audley Street and Oxford Street. It was a very exciting time with lots of national fervour.
Colum – such old fashioned manners
My Mother, who had been widowed in 1936, married Lord Colum Crichton-Stuart, son of the 3rd Marquess of Bute, in 1940. When I was very young the Bute family lived next door to us in Mansfield Street and I recall him always doffing his hat when he saw us. He was a lovely man with such old fashioned manners. I became very fond of him and he was always very kind to me. He had been an admirer of my Mother for many years.
We spent the war years at Bowood which, as everywhere at that time, became a very different place. My sister Kitty left London for the safety of Bowood with her two little boys. It was wonderful to have the nursery alive again and to have Nanny back and Kitty had another little boy in 1941. Servants were called up on active service and food and petrol rationing began. My brother Charlie, who had become the 7th Marquess on my father’s death in 1936, joined the Army. Ned was to follow him towards the end of the War when he was old enough. My Mother helped to keep things going at Bowood for Charlie to take over when the War ended.
Red cloaks!
For me the war brought a huge change in my life. In September 1939, the Air Ministry took over the large premises near Tetbury occupied by Westonbirt School and the School moved to Bowood House. Suddenly, my home was invaded by all these girls wearing red cloaks. Red cloaks were floating about all over the place! I was so envious and desperately wanted a red cloak of my own. I was lonely for young company and voiced my feelings to Nanny who discussed it with my Mother and, in May 1940, I joined the school. The family had moved into one of the wings at Bowood for the war so going to school meant literally walking down a passage and returning along the passage at the end of the day to go home. Soon after, I moved into a dormitory with the other girls which was much more fun and I was very excited. Sunday was the only day girls were allowed to leave the school to go home. I didn’t have to leave the school to go home as it was just down the passage but I wanted to be like all the other girls so I only went down the passage on Sundays. There were classrooms all over the house including the Orangery. Later when I was in the 6th form we slept at Corsham Court where we would have our breakfast, travel to Bowood by bus and were made to run around the front terraces for exercise before going in to lessons.
My Mother
I could not tell my story without a very special mention of my Mother. I idolised her. To me she was marvellous and very pretty with a lovely voice. She played the piano and was always at her desk writing letters. She had a secretary and spent her time visiting retired people on the Estate and was always full of care for people. When the war started she became County Organiser of the WVS and was on lots of other committees and always attending meetings. My sister Kitty was a Food Officer and would take me in the car when she delivered food and toys sent from America to children and evacuees. Both my Mother and Kitty had a special petrol allowance for their war work but when we wanted to go shopping we would walk from the house to Black Dog Halt and take the train from there. My Mother had a little Vauxhall AHR 25 in which she drove madly around the place with very little road sense! There were sometimes calls to say she was stuck and needed rescuing. On one occasion, she became stuck on top of a heap of gravel and no-one could work out how she could have possibly got there!
Charlie and Ned
My Mother had so much tragedy in her life. I was just old enough in 1933 to remember my eldest brother, Maurice who died that year in an accident in London. In 1944, as the war was in its final year, Charlie had been away four years in the Middle East and had not returned home in all that time. By now, Ned was also in the Army and took part in the Normandy invasion. In August 1944 we received the dreadful news that he had been killed in Normandy. His grave is in a war cemetery near Caen. There was no news of Charlie, who by now was in Italy. In December 1944 came the news that Charlie had been killed in Italy within a few days of Ned. It had taken until December for the news to reach us. Charlie has no known grave but is remembered on the Memorial at Monte Cassino. We had thought we might lose one of them in the War but never ever thought we would lose them both. They had been very close as brothers and there was one small blessing in that neither knew the other had died. My Mother had lost all three sons. It was a tragic time for us all. The Title and Estate were entailed to the male line and a first cousin, George Mercer-Nairne became the 8th Marquess. Kitty and her family, who had spent the whole of the war years at Bowood, stayed on for some years to help with the running of the estate until George Mercer-Nairne was able to take over. He eventually moved there and grew to love Bowood.
By this time, my school days had ended, together with my life at Bowood and I was living in London with my Mother and Colum at 23 Charles Street. I coped with the loss of my brothers by shutting it away inside me and getting on with my new life in London. Some may have thought me uncaring but that was how I dealt with my loss. Post-war London experienced what I called a ‘false time’ with everyone trying to make up for the lost War years by going to balls and participating in a frantic social whirl of events. I had no ambitions whatsoever other than to get married and have children. Thankfully, I was never presented at Court as all those such functions took some time to resume after the War. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as I hated all that kind of formality. I went to a sort of finishing school called The House of Citizenship for a year. I learned shorthand and typing and useful subjects like Empire and First World War history – definitely not learning to curtsey! My Mother wasn’t too sure I should go out to work but I got a job at the WVS offices in Tothill Street where I did secretarial work.
Charles – a wonderful man
Life was full of social events, friends and fun. In the summer of 1949 I went to the Fun Fair at Olympia with a group of friends and met Charles Lambton. We didn’t take much notice of each other at first – it wasn’t an immediate thing. As time went on, I realised what a wonderful man he was and in the following April we became engaged. We were married in June 1950 at St Margaret’s Westminster with Archdeacon Coulter, an elderly retired vicar of Calne, officiating. Colum gave me away and I recall we left home far too early and had to make two circuits of Hyde Park on the way to the church! My dress was of heavy white brocade and I’m pretty sure it was made by Molyneaux. My chief bridesmaid was Caroline Fitzmaurice, the others being Emma Cavendish sister of the present Duke of Devonshire, Annabelle Scrope, a cousin of Charles and Lucinda Lambton who all wore dresses of white tulle and ribbon. There were three page boys all in miniature Coldstream Guards uniform – my cousin Jonathan Warre, David Astor and Peregrine Burlington who is now Duke of Devonshire. It was a hot day and we all felt very uncomfortable which I think shows in the photographs. Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, a friend of my Mother’s, attended and the reception was held at Claridges Hotel. Queen Mary came to the reception for a cup of tea. I recall her haughty presence and German accent – I was quite scared of her. It was a wedding typical of many society ones in the 1950s. Charles had an old Rolls Royce and we used it touring Holland and the South of France for our honeymoon.
I had 55 years of total happiness with Charles. He died in May 2005. Almost 30 of those years were spent at The Old Rectory, Calstone, where I still am. It has been a wonderful place for our four children and their families, including eleven grandchildren, to come to.
Elizabeth Lambton
Calstone in the Spring of 2006
(Lady Lambton died in Marlborough in 2016)