The extraordinary Cliveden House, Buckinghamshire, England
If anywhere in England has a claim to be Xanadu, Cliveden is it.
The third of three properties on this site, the present Grade I listed house was built in 1851 by the architect Charles Barry (best known for the Houses of Parliament) for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland.
In 1893, the vast estate was purchased by an American millionaire, William Waldorf Astor (later 1st Viscount Astor), who made huge embellishments and in turn gave it to his son Waldolf on his marriage to Nancy Langhorne in 1904, and so began the glory years of the house.
Particularly in the 1920's to 40's the so called 'Cliveden Set' attracted a glittering array of the great and good (and many who were not the latter with the hindsight of history), from Europe and both sides of the Atlantic. How far their right-wing influence extended, particularly that of Nancy Aster who was vehemently anti-Catholic and anti Jewish, and how deep was their involvement in Nazi appeasement is still open to conjecture.
But for most British people, Cliveden will always be connected to the Profumo Affair of the early 1960's.
In an atmosphere of ever increasing and wilder parties, John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government and married to a much admired British film star, had an affair with the 19-year-old model Christine Keeler whom he’d met whilst she swam naked in the swimming pool during a party. When it was revealed she may have been simultaneously involved with Captain Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché and thought to be a spy, things quickly became more complicated.
The lasciviously reported story had everything the press could want; unimaginable wealth, the British class system, the establishment gathering ranks, an increasingly tawdry court case, a suicide, tales of police blackmail and violence, and lots of sex and sleaze. I think it was the 60's getting going; ten years earlier I suspect it wouldn't have been reported.
It brought down Macmillan's government and truly shocked a nation that had been brought up to believe that those in power were 'one's betters' and is still a rich source of speculation and unanswered questions.
The extraordinary Cliveden House, Buckinghamshire, England
If anywhere in England has a claim to be Xanadu, Cliveden is it.
The third of three properties on this site, the present Grade I listed house was built in 1851 by the architect Charles Barry (best known for the Houses of Parliament) for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland.
In 1893, the vast estate was purchased by an American millionaire, William Waldorf Astor (later 1st Viscount Astor), who made huge embellishments and in turn gave it to his son Waldolf on his marriage to Nancy Langhorne in 1904, and so began the glory years of the house.
Particularly in the 1920's to 40's the so called 'Cliveden Set' attracted a glittering array of the great and good (and many who were not the latter with the hindsight of history), from Europe and both sides of the Atlantic. How far their right-wing influence extended, particularly that of Nancy Aster who was vehemently anti-Catholic and anti Jewish, and how deep was their involvement in Nazi appeasement is still open to conjecture.
But for most British people, Cliveden will always be connected to the Profumo Affair of the early 1960's.
In an atmosphere of ever increasing and wilder parties, John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government and married to a much admired British film star, had an affair with the 19-year-old model Christine Keeler whom he’d met whilst she swam naked in the swimming pool during a party. When it was revealed she may have been simultaneously involved with Captain Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché and thought to be a spy, things quickly became more complicated.
The lasciviously reported story had everything the press could want; unimaginable wealth, the British class system, the establishment gathering ranks, an increasingly tawdry court case, a suicide, tales of police blackmail and violence, and lots of sex and sleaze. I think it was the 60's getting going; ten years earlier I suspect it wouldn't have been reported.
It brought down Macmillan's government and truly shocked a nation that had been brought up to believe that those in power were 'one's betters' and is still a rich source of speculation and unanswered questions.