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Cliveden
Cliveden (pronounced ) is an English country house and estate in the care of the National Trust in Buckinghamshire, on the border with Berkshire. The Italianate mansion, also known as Cliveden House, crowns an outlying ridge of the Chiltern Hills close to the South Bucks villages of Burnham and Taplow. The main house sits above the banks of the River Thames, and its grounds slope down to the river. There have been three houses on this site: the first, built in 1666, burned down in 1795 and the second house (1824) was also destroyed by fire, in 1849. The present Grade I listed house was built in 1851 by the architect Charles Barry for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland. Cliveden has been the home to a Prince of Wales, two Dukes, an Earl, and finally the Viscounts Astor. As the home of Nancy Astor, wife of the 2nd Viscount Astor, Cliveden was the meeting place of the Cliveden Set of the 1920s and 30s—a group of political intellectuals. Later, during the early 1960s when it w ...
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Cliveden 02
Cliveden (pronounced ) is an English country house and estate in the care of the National Trust in Buckinghamshire, on the border with Berkshire. The Italianate mansion, also known as Cliveden House, crowns an outlying ridge of the Chiltern Hills close to the South Bucks villages of Burnham and Taplow. The main house sits above the banks of the River Thames, and its grounds slope down to the river. There have been three houses on this site: the first, built in 1666, burned down in 1795 and the second house (1824) was also destroyed by fire, in 1849. The present Grade I listed house was built in 1851 by the architect Charles Barry for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland. Cliveden has been the home to a Prince of Wales, two Dukes, an Earl, and finally the Viscounts Astor. As the home of Nancy Astor, wife of the 2nd Viscount Astor, Cliveden was the meeting place of the Cliveden Set of the 1920s and 30s—a group of political intellectuals. Later, during the early 1960s when it was t ...
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Profumo Affair
The Profumo affair was a major scandal in twentieth-century British politics. John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, had an extramarital affair with 19-year-old model Christine Keeler beginning in 1961. Profumo denied the affair in a statement to the House of Commons, but weeks later a police investigation exposed the truth, proving that Profumo had lied to the House of Commons. The scandal severely damaged the credibility of Macmillan's government, and Macmillan resigned as Prime Minister in October 1963, citing ill health. Ultimately, the fallout contributed to the Conservative government's defeat by the Labour Party in the 1964 general election. When the Profumo affair was first revealed, public interest was heightened by reports that Keeler may have been simultaneously involved with Captain Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché, thereby creating a possible national security risk. Keeler knew both Profumo and Iv ...
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Nancy Astor
Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor's first husband was American Robert Gould Shaw II; the couple separated after four years and divorced in 1903. She moved to England and married Waldorf Astor. After her husband succeeded to the peerage and entered the House of Lords, she entered politics as a member of the Conservative Party and won his former seat of Plymouth Sutton in 1919, becoming the first woman to sit as an MP in the House of Commons. She served in Parliament until 1945, when she was persuaded to step down. Astor has been criticised for her antisemitism and sympathetic view of Nazism. Early life Nancy Witcher Langhorne was born at the Langhorne House in Danville, Virginia. She was the eighth of eleven children born to railroad businessman Chiswell Dabney Langhorne and Nancy Witcher Kee ...
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Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor
Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, DL (19 May 1879 – 30 September 1952) was an American-born English politician and newspaper proprietor. He was a member of the Astor family. He was active in minor political roles. He was devoted to charitable projects, and with his more famous wife Nancy became a prominent fixture in upper class English society. Early life Astor was born in New York City. He was the eldest son of William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, and Mary Dahlgren Paul. His younger brothers were John Rudolph Astor (who died young) and John Jacob Astor V, Baron Astor of Hever. He spent much of his life traveling and living in Europe before his family settled in England in 1889. There Waldorf attended Eton College and New College, Oxford, where he excelled as a sportsman, earning accolades for both fencing and polo. R. J. Q. Adams, "Astor, Waldorf, second Viscount Astor", in ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds. ( ...
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William Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor
William Waldorf Astor II, 3rd Viscount Astor (13 August 1907 – 7 March 1966) was an English businessman and Conservative Party politician. He was also a member of the Astor family. Background and education William was the eldest son of Waldorf Astor and Nancy Witcher Langhorne (by marriage, Viscountess Astor). He was educated at Eton and at New College, Oxford. Political career In 1932, Astor was appointed secretary to Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, at a League of Nations Committee of Enquiry in what was then known as Manchuria. First elected to the House of Commons in 1935, he served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Fulham East until 1945. Between 1936 and 1937 he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Samuel Hoare, who was then made Home Secretary in the new cabinet of Neville Chamberlain in 1937. In World War II, he served as a naval intelligence officer, acquiring no distinction, but gaining many infl ...
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Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east and Hertfordshire to the east. Buckinghamshire is one of the Home Counties, the counties of England that surround Greater London. Towns such as High Wycombe, Amersham, Chesham and the Chalfonts in the east and southeast of the county are parts of the London commuter belt, forming some of the most densely populated parts of the county, with some even being served by the London Underground. Development in this region is restricted by the Metropolitan Green Belt. The county's largest settlement and only city is Milton Keynes in the northeast, which with the surrounding area is administered by Milton Keynes City Council as a unitary authority separately to the rest of Buckinghamshire. The remainder of the county is administered by Bu ...
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Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, synthesising these with picturesque aesthetics. The style of architecture that was thus created, though also characterised as "Neo-Renaissance", was essentially of its own time. "The backward look transforms its object," Siegfried Giedion wrote of historicist architectural styles; "every spectator at every period—at every moment, indeed—inevitably transforms the past according to his own nature." The Italianate style was first developed in Britain in about 1802 by John Nash, with the construction of Cronkhill in Shropshire. This small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which is derived the Italianate architecture of the late Regency and early Victorian er ...
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Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was a British architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.Bisgrove, p. 179 Background and training Born on 23 May 1795Barry p. 4 in Bridge Street, Westminster (opposite the future site of the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster), he was the fourth son of Walter Edward Barry (died 1805), a stationer, and Frances Barry ''née'' Maybank (died 1798). He was baptised at St Margaret's, Westminster, into the Church of England, of whic ...
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Taplow
Taplow is a village and civil parish in the Unitary Authority of Buckinghamshire, England. It sits on the left bank of the River Thames, facing Maidenhead in the neighbouring county of Berkshire, with Cippenham and Burnham to the east. It is the south-westernmost settlement in Buckinghamshire. The village features a Grade II listed mock-medieval church, the parish church of St Nicholas, as well as a school of the same name. Taplow railway station, on the Great Western Main Line, serves the village, with services to London Paddington, Reading and Oxford. There are two conservation areas in the parish, the Taplow Village Conservation Area and the Taplow Riverside Conservation Area. Footpaths connect all parts of the parish to Maidenhead Bridge and to Burnham Beeches, a modest, hilly wood marking the start of the Chiltern Hills. History The village has a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest, South Lodge Pit, dating to the late Cretaceous. The village's name is Anglo-Sa ...
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Viscount Astor
Viscount Astor, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1917 for the financier and statesman William Waldorf Astor, 1st Baron Astor. He had already been created Baron Astor, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent, in 1916, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. His eldest son Waldorf, the second Viscount, was the husband of Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. , the titles are held by their grandson, the fourth Viscount, who succeeded his father in 1966. He is one of the ninety-two elected hereditary peers that remain in the House of Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999, and sits as a Conservative. John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever, was the third son of the first Viscount. This peerage, Baron Astor of Hever, was a separate creation in 1956 and not to be confused with the Viscount's subsidiary title of Baron Astor, of Hever Castle in the ...
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National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and independent National Trust for Scotland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the permanent preservation for the benefit of the Nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest". It was given statutory powers, starting with the National Trust Act 1907. Historically, the Trust acquired land by gift and sometimes by public subscription and appeal, but after World War II the loss of country houses resulted in many such properties being acquired either by gift from the former owners or through the National Land Fund. Country houses and estates still make up a significant part of its holdings, but it is also known for its protection of wild la ...
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