During a trip to Wales over the summer, I picked up a leaflet about Plas Newydd, a National Trust place on Anglesey. Sadly, a lack of time prevented me from visiting, but it’s very much on my list for a future trip. Of particular note is “the world’s largest collection of paintings by Rex Whistler, renowned artist and friend of the family. Read his love letters to Lady Caroline Paget, eldest daughter of the 6th Marquess…”
Whilst the National Trust leaflet is too coy to mention it, Wikipedia reveals that the displays include ‘a startling nude’ of the young lady in question:
How wonderfully touching that their relationship is recorded so for posterity, in words and in art. It set me wondering whether there might be other memorials at the house, to other (perhaps naughtier) relationships from years gone by. Perhaps the “sweeping gardens” that one can wander contain:
a row of birches planted by the lover of the wilful daughter of the 4th Marquess. The trees flourish to this day, despite having been stripped of many of their branches in their early years.
Maybe the dining room still features a riding crop, hanging from the wall since the days of the second Marquess?
His attractive young wife was once asked at dinner by the Duke of Devonshire why the whip was thus displayed. “Surely he doesn’t bring his horses into dinner?” It is reported that she merely blushed and lowered her eyes.
Or perhaps the main bedroom contains:
Wales’s finest collection of wooden hairbrushes, accumulated in the early twentieth century by the then lady of the house. Unfortunately, many of them show signs of significant wear, and some of them are broken.
No doubt the place is actually entirely vanilla, but any country house with a nude of the master’s daughter displayed prominently on the wall surely deserves a visit?
I am certain Abel that the riding crop was used many times on naughty women in that household of that noble family. That is the reason she blushed when the riding crop was observed. Yes, I am sure she had felt the painfull taste of it, many a time on her tender bare bottom.