THE LATE CHARLES
VILLIERS, A GRANDSON OF THE LATE LADY MAIRI BURY AND GREAT-GRANDSON OF
THE 7TH MARQUESS AND MARCHIONESS OF LONDONDERRY, REMINISCES ABOUT MOUNT STEWART, COUNTY DOWN, DURING THE 1960s AND 1970s
AN interesting fact was that while the gardens were open via the National Trust, the house itself was my grandmother's totally private residence until I was about 13, complete with butler and quite a lot of staff.
There were still some large house parties: At Christmas and New Year, 1973-74, I remember that every one of the twenty-six or so bedrooms had at least one guest staying in them.
At that time, the extensive attics were piled to the ceilings with an enormous quantity of surplus furniture for which there was no space in the rest of the house.
Those attics were cleared in a big furniture sale in 1975.
I must have been a very precocious 12 year-old because I wanted to use some modest Post Office savings to buy two dusty paintings of an attractive-looking lady, one with an elbow-sized hole in the canvas, clearly signed "B West" in black paint, and dated in the late eighteenth century, which I knew of from my "boy's den" in one of the attics before they were brought down for the sale.
I was told by my parents that I could not use my Post Office account for the purpose of the paintings of the beautiful lady.
In the event the portraits sold for relative buttons in the auction in the stable yard at Mount Stewart, were cleaned up by the Bond Street dealer who flew over from London and back the same day to buy them; then declared them to be by the famous American painter Benjamin West; cleaned; and identified as two portraits of Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh's mother-in-law; and were each quickly re-sold for large sums to two museums in the United States where they currently reside now.
There is no doubt that I would have been outbid by the dealer, but I'd have liked him to have had to cough up a bit more cash than he did.
I could go on with reams of other recollections.
My memories of Mount Stewart are, above all, of the happiest loving kind when it comes to my grandmother [Lady Mairi] who was the most wonderful grandparent anyone could have had, and we were all so lucky to have her for so long.
First published in November, 2010.
These two paintings by Benjamin West which are considered to be allegorical portraits of the mother of Emily, Viscountess Castlereagh (subsequently 2nd Marchioness of Londonderry)are now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art ("Rinaldo and Armida", signed B. West 1773) and the Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven ("Isaac's Servant Tying the Bracelet on Rebecca's Arm", signed B. West 1775)and are shown on the websites of each of these two art galleries in the United States.
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