User:Giano/Rothschild estates in the Vale of Aylesbury

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Halton House.

The Rothschild estates in the Vale of Aylesbury were mostly formed and assembled between 1850 and 1880. The English branch of the international branch of the banking family had been established by Nathan Mayer Rothschild, who arrived in London in the early nineteenth century. His priority was to establish his business and to acquire influence, by the time of his death in 1836 he was able to pass a fast growing banking business on to his sons. His three sons, Lionel, Anthony and Mayer were all passionate, if ecclectic, collectors of art and by the late 1840s were in a positiont to not only purchase art, but fully enjoy the fruits of their labours acquire vast estats and build houses in which to not only live but didplay their collections. It was to be their three adjoining estates at Tring, Mentmore and Wing were to be the nucleus of the Rothschild estates in the Vale of Aylebury - which became in effect a rothschild enclave. [1]

The brothers were joined in the Vale by their cousin, once removed, Ferdinand, who in 1874 purchased the Waddesdon estate, from the Duke of Marlborough, and built the most flamboyant of all the Rothschild's english houses, Waddedon manor. Other members of the family were to acquire smaller satelite estates in the vicinity.

Thus, the family's policy of building large mansions, serviced by numerous picturesque cottages, rebuilding whole villages coupled with land improvement schemes not only changed the appearance of a large section of the English countryside, but created employment and prosperity in a climate of rural depression. In return the family gained polictical clout and social cachet. By the close of the 19th century, the Rothschild family and its relations owned nine estates in the vale of Aylesbury, totalling some at 30,000 acres. [2] Check this out - it's 50,000 elsewhere.

Estates[edit]

Mentmore Towers.

The Rothschilds acquired their estates in the Vale of Aylesbury at a time of social and political change in the provinces. The old natural order was breaking down, not through revolution, as was and had been the case elsewhere, but because of increasing taxation and agricultural depression caused by the 1846 repealing of the Corn laws meant the Rothschilds were able to acquire large estates in a single area.

Much has been written of the Rothschild's political aspirations and claims made that these were furthered by the purchase of land in the Aylesbury Vale. In the book, "Waddesdon Manor", endorsed and promoted by the Rothschild family a story is told that circa 1850 the brothers were advised by their local agent, a provincial solicitor to purchase their land in one area in order to strengthen their "political influence in the county."[3] However, there are flaws in this story: at the time Jews were prevented by law from British Government. In 1847, Lionel de Rothschild had been elected to the British House of Commons as one of four MPs for the City of London constituency. However, because the necessary oath of allegiance on taking office was Christian, it was not until a change in the law, and successive re-elections that he was able to finally take his seat in 1858 as the first Jewish member of Parliament - over ten years before he acquired land in the Vale. Ironically, a year after his first land purchase in Buckinghamshire, Lionel was defeated in the general election of 1874. Likewise, Mayer was elected Liberal MP for Hythe in 1859, a place far from his Vale of Aylesbury country estate. It was not until Ferdinand, a comparative Rothschild latecomer to the Vale was elected MP for Buckingham in 1885 that a member of the family represented the Vale at Westminster.

Initially, the Rothschilds were poorly received, they had been hunting in the area since 1833, when Nathan had rented a house. This has been attrinuted to the political differences between the liberal Rothschild and the local Tory grandees. There was also an element of anti-Semitism.[4] Even twenty years later, when the Rothschilds were at the height of their social prestige and regularly entertaining Royalty there were frequently anti-Semitic comments directed at them from all levels of society. [5] Queen Victoria's equerry Arthur Edward Hardinge referred to the Rothschild's dining tables as "resplendent with the Hebrew gold" going so far as to say a visiting Russian royal needed a "corrective" visit to Westminster Abbey following acceptance of Rothschild hospitality.[6] The Queen herself expressed anti-Semitic views in 1873 when it was proposed that Lionel de Rothschild be elevated to the peerage; she refused and expressed a reluctance to make a Jew a peer — saying "to make a Jew a peer is a step she could not consent to" and furthermore stated to give "a title and mark of her approbation to a Jew".[7] Queen Victoria was eventually persuaded to elevate Nathaniel de Rothschild to the peerage in 1884. The present Lord Rothschild is his great-grandson. However, he was not the first Jew to be so honoured, as in 1876 the Queen had elevated her favourite Disraeli to an earldom. [8] encouraged by such comments, Lord Spencer felt it wise to advise the Prince and Princess of Wales against attending a Rothschild ball with the words "The Prince ought only to visit those of undoubted position in Society."[9]. This was world in which the Rothschild's moved.

In her history of the Rothschilds historian Beryl Escott gives states reason as to why the family chose to buy their holdings all in one are: "knowing the immense difficulties facing a foreign Jewish family into accepted and ruling social circles, they were advised to concentrate together in the same area,where by sheer numbers they could no longer be ignored"[10]

Whatever the reasoning bedind the decisions to mass their estates in one area, a third and far less philosophical reason for the settlement in the Vale is that land appeared in sufficient quantities for sale at just the right time. This was largely dues to the penurious state of not just the local sqiarachy anxious sell their mortgaged farms, but three huge aristocratic landowners who found themselves heavily in debt. The bankruptcy of the Duke of Buckingham, owner of Stowe, in 1848, and the penurious circumastances of Sir John Dashwood of West Wycombe Park saw vast tracts of Buckinghamshire on the market. Within a few years, the Duke of Marlborough found himself in a similar situation, owner of Englands largest house, Blenheim Palace, the Duke was struggling to maintain it, the sale of the Waddesdon and Winchendon estates in Buckinghamshire, preceeded the sale of jewellery and many of the palace's treasures. Ferdinand (date) bought the estate, while other members of the family bought many of the furnishings and artistic treasures from both Stowe House and Blenheim Palace [11]

The final advantage to settling n the Vale of Aylesbury was the coming of the railway. The area was just an hour from London, with a special train pulling one of the Rothschild's blue and yellow liveried carriages it could be even faster.[12]

Mayer[edit]

It was Mayer, the fourth and youngest son of Nathan Mayer Rothschild, who was the first to build a mansion on his estate in the Vale of Aylesbury. His daughter, Hannah, aged just six months, laid the foundation stone on 31 December 1851.[13] Following this precocious act, over the next four years, an immense mansion, designed by Joseph Paxton, arose. Built in the English renaissance style it was to be the largest of all the Rothschilds English houses. Howver despite inovations of the time, huge plate glass windows, underfloor heating and a primitive form of air conditioing, it it was clearly designed to impress rather than relax its visitors and never found comfortable by its occupants.[14].

Once completed the mansion became the setting for Mayer's pricelss collection of furniture, painting and bibelots. Like a museum, whole rooms were devoted to collections amber, Limoges enamels and the works of the greatest painters. Furnishings originating from Versailles and other royal collections filled the rooms, Gobelin tappestries lined many of the walls while the floors were covered with Savonnerie carpets. This massed assemblage of ecclectic works of art, came to be known "le goût Rothschild" and was to be a feature of all the Rothschild's English homes.

Collecting art and hunting foxes, however, were not the Rothschild's only passions at their country estates; they also indulged heavily in the breeing of racehorses. At Mentmore, Mayer founded the Mentmore and Crafton Studs; in 1871 alone he won the 1,000 Guineas,the Derby, the Oaks and the St Leger. [15]

As a politician, mayer appears to have made less of a mark; he was MP for Hythe, but like his brother never made a speech [16]. His political carreer came to a halt after he advised his constituents to back his horse, Laburnham, in the 1872 Derby; It lost, feeling that he had misled his constituents, never stood for parliament again. perhaps this is what caused his friend and Buckinghamshire neighbour, Benjamin Disraeli]] to describe him as "A man with a stable mind." [17]

In 1873, Mayer bought Ascott, a small half timbered farmhouse with 90 acres, near the village of Wing, adjoining his Mentmore estate [18] In 1874, he gave this small house to his nephew (the son of his brother, Lionel), Leopold for use as a hunting box. Leopold was to develop Ascott into one of the family's greatest estates.

Mayer died in 1874 leaving his only child, Hannah, the richest woman in Britain. Following Rothschild tradition she had no part in the bank, but complete contol over her estates and finances. Her marriage, against her family's wishes, in 1875 to the highly complex and political Christian Earl of Rosebery saw this oddly matched couple acquire, what would be today described as, celebrity status. Mentmore became the setting for political and royal houseparties of the highest league, however, by the time Rosebery acheived Hannah's ambition and become Prime Minister, in 1894, she had been dead for four years. His premiership was shambolic, never the stabelest of men, without her support his eccentricities grew and mentmore lost something of its glamour as its owner took to driving the village lanes in the middle of the night to overcome his insomnia.

In 1974, the estate and the contents of the house, billed as "The Sale of the Century" were sold by Mayer's great grandson. After a period as a centre of transcendental meditation, the great house is now derelict and facing an uncertain furure. The once great estate and is now divided and under numerous swperate ownerships.

Lionel[edit]

Ascott House.

In the Home Counties, Gunnersbury Park,Middlesex, was the family's first country house to be purchased, in 1835, byNathan Mayer Rothschild purchased the mansion. However, this was an isolated early purchase and cannot be considered part of the Rothschild's Vale of Aylesbury holdings. Gunnersbury Park was inherited by Nathan's eldest son and successor as head of the English Rothschild banking house, Lionel. It was Lionel who not only firmly placed the family firmly and inrecocanly in the higher echelons of British power, wben he arranged an overnight loan to the British Government of four million pounds to buy shares in the Suez Canal.[19], but also through his land acquisions in the Vale of Aylesbury was to be reponsible for two of the Rothschild estates there, Tring and Halton.

Lionel, arrval in the Vale was relatively late, pursuaded to take up hinting for his health, he quicly saw the attractions of the area and began acquiring land in 1873. His first purchase was a 1,400 acre estate at Halton from the dashwood family of West Wycombe Park (who were in financial dificulties) by 4,000 acre Tring park estate, which adjoined his bother Anthony's estate at Aston Clinton. [20]

In 1874, lionel's son leopold, was given Ascott House, by his uncle, Mayer, whose estate adjoined at Mentmore. On lionel's death in 1879 his Vale of aylesbury estates were inherited by is sons Leopold and Alfred. On Lionel's death in 1879, his sons inherited: Alfred, Halton; Nathan, Tring; and Leopold consolidated his estates at Ascott.

Anthony[edit]

Waddesdon Manor. The north entrance facade.

Anthony Nathan de Rothschild completed the purchase and modernisation of Aston Clinton House and extensive estates in the area in 1853. The architect involved was the Rothschild's favourite, George Devey. Old photographs of the house show a sprawling neo-Georgian/Italianate house with verandahs and a large porte-cochère. A large number of workers' cottages were built, and two schools and a village hall set up under Rothschild patronage.

On the death of Anthony's wife, Louise in 1910 the house was bequeathed to her two daughters, Constance, Lady Battersea and Annie, The Hon. Mrs. Elliot Yorke, who shared it as a holiday home, spending a just few weeks together there each summer.

Ferdinand[edit]

Minor Estates[edit]

Alfred[edit]

During the 1840s, the acquisition of land [21] The bankruptcy of the Duke of Buckingham, owner of Stowe, in 1848 quickly followed by that of Sir John Dashwood of West Wycombe Park saw vast tracts of Buckinghamshire on the market; this was quickly purchased by the Rothschild family. [22] The reasons for the for the Rothschild land acquisitions to be so concentrated on one area was cheifly political, however, the brothers love of fox hunting and country pursuits meant that it soom became necessary to have weekend retreats built on the newly purchased estates.[23] Lionel Rothschild's brother, Baron Mayer de Rothschild, became the first Rothschild to build a house in Buckinghamshire when he commissioned Joseph Paxton to design Mentmore Towers in 1850. Buckinghamshire had recently been blighted by a livestock famine that had almost destroyed the rural communities and so estates that were in proximity to London were going cheap, and the agricultural depression saw many landed estates come onto the market. By 1900, different branches and generations of the family owned thousands of acres, so the Vale of Aylesbury almost became a Rothschild enclave.


Nathan Mayer Rothschild had rented Tring Park in Tring, Hertfordshire in the 1830s. It was purchased with 4,000 acres (16 km²) by Lionel Rothschild in May 1872 as his principal country residence. The family seat was established at Waddesdon Manor, near to the market town of Aylesbury, and the Rothschilds also purchased the historic King's Head Inn in Aylesbury. The King's Head was donated to the National Trust in 1925.


"The Champneys (also recorded as Champneys and Forsters) estate was originally a separate manor associated with Tring and was recorded in the Court Rolls of 1514. It was owned by successive landowning families in the Wigginton and surrounding area between the 14th and 19th centuries, although for a short period around 1535 it is recorded as owned by the then Archbishop of Canterbury one Thomas Cranmer. In 1902 Champneys was sold to Lady Rothschild by the Rev. Arthur Sutton Valpy, a descendant of Richard Valpy who had inherited it in 1871. He had replaced the original building by the current house in 1874 which stood in extensive grounds of around 200 acres (0.81 km2) It is now known as a health spa." Copypasted this para from Wiggington has the smell of copyvio - check it out.
"Diamonds in the beds of actresses"
"designed to astound visitors rather than out them at ease" McKinstrey, p68.
originally designed by Wren "Frenchified" by the Rothschilds

Rural impact[edit]

some images here

Estates in the 21st century[edit]

In 1925, following the death of Nathan’s grandson Leopold de Rothschild, Leopold’s wife, Maria, and son Lionel, sold the 200 acre/80 hectare Gunnersbury estate, which was entirely contained within the Brentford Urban District,[24] to the adjacent Ealing Borough Council and Acton Borough Council for £130,000.

Eythrope Pavilion is the country home of the current Lord Rothschild. On the Waddesdon Estate, it had been built by Alice de Rothschild who lived principally with her brother, Ferdinand, at his houses in London and Waddesdon.[25] an eccentric lady, she beleived water vapour to be dangerous to the health while asleep. therefore having built her house in a bend of the River Thame, always returned each night to her brothers nearby "chateau" to sleep. In 1957, when Alice's heir (she had inherited her brother's Waddesdon estate in 188?) James de Rothschild beqeathed Waddesdon to the national trust, his widow Dorothy (nee Pinto) transformed the Pavilion into a more modest country home for herself.[26] She in turn bequeathed the house to the present Lord Rothschild.

Waddesdon Manor and Ascott House were donated to the National Trust, though in the latter case a branch of the family retained the right to live in part of the house. Halton is now an officers' mess, and Tring is a school of the performing arts. Mentmore has passed through various hands, and planning permission is in place for its conversion into a hotel[citation needed]. Aston Clinton was demolished in the 1950s[citation needed].

Other Rothschild properties included Bentley Priory and Champneys (near Wigginton), both in Hertfordshire, and the family still owns an estate at Ashton Wold near Oundle in Northamptonshire, the family home of Dame Miriam Louisa Rothschild. Further afield, the Rothschild family owns the Exbury estate in Hampshire, world famous for the Rothschild collection of rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias.

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ .find ref for this - Cowles?.
  2. ^ Porter, p203.
  3. ^ Hall, p36.
  4. ^ Hall, p36, gives both these reasons.
  5. ^ Young, P 18, states that at the time of Mayer's daughter's marriage, in 1875, many "people were casually anti-Semitic, despite the Prince of Wales hob-nobbing with Jewish financiers".
  6. ^ find ref
  7. ^ Two quotes by Queen Victoria from Ferguson, p. 773.
  8. ^ Ferguson p774 suggests that although the Queen admitted to an aversion "to making a person of the Jewish religion a peer" her true reasons were as much social and political as religious
  9. ^ Ferguson find page No
  10. ^ Escott, p25.
  11. ^ Think the ref for this is in the Mentmore Catalogue
  12. ^ Escott, p5.
  13. ^ Robinson, SAVE Mentmore for the Nation, p. 5 reports her laying the foundation stone. The ceremony of laying of a foundation stone is purely ceremonial, and merely requires the person chosen to touch the stone with a trowel in hand.
  14. ^ McKinstrey, p68.
  15. ^ Cowles, p.142.
  16. ^ Cowles, p.142.
  17. ^ Cowles, p.142.
  18. ^ Ascott, p5.
  19. ^ Escot, p14.
  20. ^ Cowles, p142.
  21. ^ Hall, p36.
  22. ^ hall, p36.
  23. ^ Hall, p36.
  24. ^ Great Britain Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, Brentford UD (historic map). Retrieved 2008-02-02.
  25. ^ Rothschild, p16.
  26. ^ Mrs James de Rothschild, find page.

References[edit]

  • Ferguson, Niall (1998). The World's Banker: the History of the House of Rothschild. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0 297 815393.
  • Hall, Michael (2002). Waddesdon Manor. new York: Harry N Abrams. ISBN 0 8109 3239 3.
  • de Rothschild, Mrs James (1979). The Rothschilds at Waddesdon Manor. London: Collins. ISBN 0 00 216671-2.
  • Porter, Roy (1998). London: A Social History. Harvard University Press.
  • Cowles, Virginia (1975). The Rothschilds, a Family of Fortune. London: First Futura Publications. ISBN 978-0860072065.

See also[edit]

[[Category:History of Buckinghamshire] [[Category:Houses in Buckinghamshire] [[Category: Houses in Hertfordshire] [[Category:Rothschild family|*]

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