Cliveden
The dying days of the English country house
Contrary to popular myth, the exuberant flame of life in the English country house was not extinguished by tears at…
Close encounters on the starship Enterprise
For a show with a self-proclaimed ‘five-year mission’, Star Trek hasn’t done badly. Gene Roddenberry’s ‘Wagon train to the stars’…
David Astor: the saintly, tormented man who remade the Observer
Before embarking on this book, Jeremy Lewis was told by his friend Diana Athill that his subject, the newspaper editor…
Love nest or den of iniquity? Cliveden has always been shrouded in mystery and scandal
Well, you can’t say he wasn’t warned. Swimming pools, Nancy Astor told her son, Bill, were ‘disgustin’. I don’t trust…
Oscar Wilde, Christine Keeler, Ivor Novello and Isambard Kingdom Brunel make unexpected companions on the Great Western
Readers who have put in some time on the railways may remember the neat, brush-painted graffiti that appeared in 1974…
Fiction embroiled in the Profumo affair
Sex, spies, aristocrats and atom bombs — the Profumo affair is in the news again, thanks to the recent Andrew…
William Astor: My father, his swimming pool and the Profumo scandal
I was ten when the Profumo affair began at my home, Cliveden. Andrew Lloyd Webber has captured some of the story – but not all
