THE Merchant-Ivory film The Remains of the Day is set partly in the
thirties in a country house which plays host to supporters of German
appeasement and whose setting bears a striking resemblance to Cliveden,
the Astors' country seat in Berkshire.
Cliveden (it rhymes with ''lived in'') has had a chequered history.
More than 30 years ago John Profumo met Christine Keeler there and began
the Tory sex scandal by with all others are judged.
Between the wars Nancy Astor gathered an exotic mix of English
aristocracy, politicians and celebrities. The Cliveden Set attracted,
among others, the German ambassador Von Ribbentrop, Lothian Lothian,
Charlie Chaplin, Lloyd George, George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling and
Lawrence of Arabia. Chaplin wrote in his autobiography: ''Lady Astor
would have made a wonderful actress.''
According to the writer Angela Lambert, the young people invited to
Cliveden were ''usually the most vivacious and intelligent of their age
group''. Some 30 household servants pampered the regular weekend guests
who would take out boats on the river, or play tennis.
In her entry for December 13, 1937, diarist Beatrice Webb wrote about
''the Cliveden Coterie'' describing members as ''die-hard pro-German''.
The New York Times said that the Cliveden Set was ''widely regarded as
the most influential of Germany's sympathisers''. According to David
Sinclair, in his book Dynasty: The Astors and their Time, the Set was
innocent of the charge of ''conniving in the rise of the Nazi's Reich.''
In the House of Commons, however, Nancy was once referred to as ''the
honourable member for Berlin''.
Nancy wrote to the papers denying that any sinister group met at
Cliveden ''in the interests of fascism or anything else'' although she
did admit to entertaining people of many religious and political creeds.
When Labour MP Tom Driberg made mention of the Set he was promptly
invited to lunch by Nancy Astor to be dissuaded of such a Set's
existence.
''There is no doubt that a Cliveden Set did exist in the sense that
the phrase represents a set of assumptions and presumptions to which the
Astors and their friends were amongst the most important subscribers,''
writes David Sinclair. According to Bernard Shaw's biographer, Michael
Holroyd, Nancy ''created a fantasy kingdom [at Cliveden] that
surrendered to reality only under extreme pressure''.
Nancy finally abandoned her stance on appeasement but she never saw
eye-to-eye with Winston Churchill. She once told him: ''If I was married
to you I would put poison in your coffee.'' Churchill's immortal reply
was: ''Nancy, if I was married to you I'd drink it!''
Nancy was a celebrated eccentric, a teetotaller, she converted to
Christian Science and visited the USSR in 1931. She was greatly
enamoured of the company of George Bernard Shaw who called Nancy ''a
volcano''. The daughter of a wealthy American family (her sister was
immortalised in popular cartoons as The Gibson Girl), Nancy married the
millionaire Waldorf Astor in 1906. In 1919 she became Britain's first
woman MP to take her seat.
THE Astors traced their name back to John Jacob Astor who once owned
almost all of Manhattan. The family moved on from property and
publishing to hotels. New Yorks' Waldorf Astoria was opened in 1893.
Among its innovations were breakfast in bed and the Waldorf Salad.
Nancy feared and hated war but she could do nothing to stop the Second
World War. After the war the Cliveden Set transmogrified. Bill Astor,
Nancy's son, loved to entertain at Cliveden although it was then owned
by the National Trust. His wife Bronwen was Balmain's principal model.
The hospitable Bill Astor had guests staying most weekends for house
parties.
Minister for War John Profumo was one such guest who met a naked
19-year-old model, Christine Keeler, at Cliveden's walled swimming pool
one hot June in 1961. It was a fateful meeting that was to put Profumo
and Keeler's names in the history books. The link came through Stephen
Ward, a society osteopath, who had a weekend cottage in the grounds.
Ward introduced Lord Astor and his friends to a variety of pretty girls.
In court Mandy Rice-Davies mentioned Lord Astor by name and when she
was asked if she knew that Astor had told the police that her
allegations about him were untrue she famously replied: ''He would,
wouldn't he!'' After the trial of Stephen Ward, Bill Astor was
criticised for not coming forward to defend his friend.
Nancy lived to see the family named dragged through the dirt. Bill
Astor's reputation was severely damaged in the scandal although he was
cleared of any wrongdoing. The sordid case took its toll and he died in
1966 of a heart attack. He was 58. His wife said that the Profumo Affair
was partly to blame. His estate was valued at #1m in the UK and $2m in
America. It was a paltry amount compared with previous Astor wills; the
dynasty's founder left $20m.
Cliveden has a beautiful setting by the Thames amid woods and gardens.
Nancy Astor sent blooms up from Cliveden for her nieces' coming-out
balls. Now Cliveden is a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World
network.
In 1991 Emma Thomson and Kenneth Branagh were married at Cliveden in a
fabulously lavish #30,000 wedding. Conference delegates can dine at the
original Astor dining table, up to 28 at a time. To stay at Cliveden
costs around #195 per guest, per night.
The rooms and suites have names like Mountbatten, Shrewsbury and
Grenfell (Joyce Grenfell was Nancy Astor's niece and she spent her
childhood Christmases at Cliveden). But there is no Keeler Cocktail Bar,
although the walls of Waldo's, one of Cliveden's restaurants, now sport
some Profumo Affair portraits by Stephen Ward (they were once relegated
to one of the gentlemen's lavatories).
* Cliveden, Taplow, Berkshire (Tel: 0628-668561). You can look round
the grounds at certain times of the year and for two hours on Thursday
and Sunday non-residents can see inside one of the wings of the house.
But you can't drop in for afternoon tea.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article