Lady Manvers, artist.

 

Lady Manvers, born Marie-Louise Roosevelt Butterfield (1889 -1984), was a talented and prolific artist. Noting her obvious passion for the subject, her father Sir Frederick Butterfield of Cliffe Castle, Yorkshire, enrolled her in the Julienne School of Art when the family moved to Paris in her early teens. This School concentrated on studious drawing from observation, the benefits of which are apparent in the strong draftsmanship underpinning all her work.

When Lady Manvers moved to Thoresby Park as wife to Gervas Evelyn Pierrepont, 6th Earl Manvers, she would take for her subject many of the people on the Estate. Her drawings and paintings are of keen historical interest today. Her sketchbook studies of those "Upstairs Downstairs" years, and the military presence during wartime preparations, are an invaluable and unique record of Thoresby at that time. However, I cannot help but feel a degree of loneliness in her paintings, a series of canvases set-up undisturbed throughout those empty rooms.

When her husband died in 1955 it meant the end of the Manvers line. After Lady Manvers died in 1984 her daughter Lady Rozelle allowed a small number of such sketches and paintings to be given to the sitters involved, and I still have the two letters from her authorizing this particular work to be given over to me. In 1991 Lady Rozelle oversaw the conversion of the Stable Block to the right of Thoresby Hall into an Art Gallery / visitors’ shop, which could celebrate her mother's work as well as display paintings by new artists. Following the death of Lady Rozelle, much of the gallery space was converted into a café / restaurant.

Below: Lady Manvers Self Portrait 1952.

You can read a piece I was asked to write about Lady Manvers for Nottingham University, on THIS LINK.
You can see more of her paintings in the Pierrepont Collection on THIS LINK.

Above: The Blue Drawing Room, Thoresby Hall. More Thoresby Hall interiors on THIS LINK.

Thoresby Hall meets Sabrina (1957).

 

 

Even in the 19th century Thoresby Hall had frequently invited tourists and sight-seers when it was convenient and the Earl was away. However, in 1957 Major Beattie (then husband to Lady Rozelle,  daughter of Countess Manvers), oversaw the formal procedures of making Thoresby Hall open to the general public on Saturdays, Sundays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Bank Holidays.

To mark this auspicious occasion he invited the voluptuous 1950's blonde celebrity Sabrina, whose "Sabrina Slept Here" publicity stunt had been targeted at several Stately Homes. Sabrina duly slept in Thoresby Hall on the night of 28th March 1957, the cause of much bawdy humour amongst male workers across the estate. It was also the Major's plan to have Sabrina dress as Maid Marian the following day (see picture above with Robin Hood statue) and serve the first guests with venison. As Lady Rozelle and Countess Manvers were holidaying in the Mediterranean at the time, their thoughts on the matter are not known.

Below: Thoresby Hall on a postcard dated August Bank Holiday, 1959, just two years after the Hall was opened to the public, long after Sabrina had left the building. If you visited Thoresby Hall at this time the admission price was 2 shillings and sixpence (25p) per adult, children half price. Car parking was 1 shilling (10p), motorcycles half price. The deer could still be seen relatively close by. A total admission figure for 1963 of 46,000, shows how popular an attraction Thoresby Hall quickly became.

Thoresby Hall interior as it once was.

 

Above: The entrance hall.

In its heyday as a stately home, open to the public, Thoresby Hall's visitors would be greeted by the amazing spectacle of this perfectly preserved Victorian Great Hall, with treasures too many to mention. Sadly, when Lady Manvers died in 1984, the Hall had already been the property of the National Coal board for 4 years, in accordance  with their possible intent to open a new mining vein beneath the Estate, and no doubt to minimize problems already caused by subsidence. Thoresby subsequently went through the hands of more than one speculator and much of what you see in these photographs was auctioned away.

Above: As long ago as 1907 the schoolchildren of Thoresby Estate would be invited to a Christmas Party at the Hall involving a meal, entertainment, and a gift. These parties were still a great treat in the 1950s and early 60s. The gifts dispensed at the end of the evening in the Great Hall, often had a distinct Robin Hood theme because they were mostly items that had been in the tourist's gift shop during the summer season!

 

Above: The magnificent Blue Drawing Room off the south west corner of the great hall, and deriving its name from the silk on the walls.

Above: One of Thoresby Hall's most popular attractions was always the carved oak fireplace in the library. This became erroneously credited to Richard J. Tuddesbury of Edwinstowe, who did indeed produce skilled carvings elsewhere for the interior. However, it was actually produced by Gerrard Robinson of Newcastle, where a newspaper reporter had witnessed its progress in his workshop. In 1869 Robinson was using a picture of this masterpiece as his trade card.

As a child, it would greatly amuse my family that certain items of this furniture had often been in our house at the Woodyard, where my father, the foreman at the Woodyard, effected their repair! Readers may also be amused to know that the firewood produced at the Woodyard for Lady Manvers, had to be cut to very exacting specifications. Only "billet wood", 9 inches (23 cm) long, 3 inches (8 cm) diameter, and free from all knots, was acceptable for her bedroom, sitting room, and dining room!

Above: The Small Drawing Room. Below: The State Dining Room.

Above: The Victoria Bedroom. Below: The Spare Bedroom.

Above: The Library.

Note: All photographs are taken from past visitor brochures. The coloured items are dated 1979. The black and white items are from the 1960s. The majority of the rooms depicted are no long accessible today and their contents auctioned away. Both the Library and the Blue Drawing Room have been available for use by hotel visitors taking afternoon tea during the 2000s. Intended visitors should check with the hotel if wanting to confirm such services are still available. 

The Dukeries.

 

The Dukeries is the name given in the 19th Century to an area in the north of Nottinghamshire covering approximately fifty square miles, and which contained no less than four ducal seats in close proximity: Clumber House, seat of the Dukes of Newcastle, Thoresby Hall, seat of the Dukes of Kingston, (subsequently the Earls Manvers), Welbeck Abbey, seat of the Dukes of Portland, and Worksop Manor, seat of the Dukes of Norfolk. From the mid-16th to the mid-20th century these estates were owned by some of the most prominent, influential families in England.  A fifth large country house, Rufford Abbey, was not a ducal seat but was closely associated with the above.

The reason this unusually large number of ducal families resided so close and in apparent harmony is due to a shared heritage. It started when Elizabeth Hardwick (Bess of Hardwick) married Sir William Cavendish. Being a court official during Henry 8th’s dissolution of the monasteries, William Cavendish was able to pick and choose the best areas of land and buildings for himself. It was probably Bess who persuaded William to then sell his properties in the south and purchase the Chatsworth estates in Derbyshire (her home county). Bess’ passion for building and forming estates had begun.

Their first child, Frances Cavendish, would marry Sir Henry Pierrepont, MP. Their son, Robert Pierrepont, would become the 1st Earl of Kingston-Upon-Hull, and purchase Thoresby from William Lodge, an Alderman of London. It would be Robert’s second son, William, who became the 4th Earl of Kingston and merged the lands he owned in Perlethorpe and Thoresby to form Thoresby Park.

Bess and William’s 5th child, Charles Cavendish, married Baroness Catherine Ogle. Their family home became Welbeck Abbey, eventually the ducal seat of the Duke of Portland, and their son, William Cavendish, would become 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the title associated with the ducal seat of Clumber House.

Lastly, Bess and William’s 7th child, Mary Cavendish, became the wife of Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, giving birth to Alethea (a.k.a. Althea). Alethea Talbot would marry Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Norfolk, the title associated with the ducal seat of Worksop Manor.

By the time of her fourth and final marriage to George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, Bess was already one of the richest and most influential women in England. Talbot was one of the premier aristocrats of the realm, and Lord of the Manor of Worksop. He had seven children by his first marriage, two of whom would marry two of Bess’s in a double ceremony: Mary Cavendish, aged 12, married Shrewsbury's eldest son Gilbert, aged 16, while Henry Cavendish, aged 18, married Shrewsbury's daughter Lady Grace Talbot, aged 8.

So it was that Elizabeth Hardwick’s (Bess of Hardwick’s) descendants inherited, purchased or gained by marriage Worksop Manor, Welbeck Abbey, Rufford Abbey, Clumber and Thoresby, lands which because of their interlinking relationships and close proximity would become known as the Dukeries.

Below: Detail from Chapman's 1774 map of Nottinghamshire showing the layout of the Dukeries estates.