Sandringham Days
Page 23
King George VI loved Sandringham and the first family Christmas of his reign was spent there, which restored the sense of continuity with the past. It was a feeling shared by the country as a whole, for it marked a return to stability and tradition. There was comfort in the idea that the sovereign was in his own home with his family around him: almost it might seem as though the awful events of the last few weeks had not taken place. Sandringham had been his childhood home, as it had been his father’s before him, and he brought to the estate a respect for all the memories it held for him but tempered by its need for a modern system of estate management that would transform it into a highly successful business venture. The second phase, one in which economy and shrewd management were paramount, may be said to have begun with the survey carried out by him, when Duke of York, in 1936.
The Queen’s early life, especially during the Second World War, was spent largely at Windsor, but there is no doubt of her affection for Sandringham. She has memories of those Christmases before the war, when her grandfather was King in the Big House and the family arrived by steam train at Wolferton. There were other Christmases, too, if only a few, when her father lived in the Big House and there were house parties with large numbers of young men in attendance, dancing in the corridors and shoots on those winter days in the cold of Norfolk, so deplored many years before by Lady Macclesfield.
The Queen and members of the Royal family traditionally arrive for Christmas for the shooting and remain until the first week of February. Then the house is full, with much of the atmosphere of former house-parties. The hospitality is legendary: the service is unobtrusively perfect, from the ‘wellies’ of the correct size for the guest to the comprehensive provision of stationery in every room. Entertainments may be less boisterous than they were in Sandringham’s early days, but there is riding, shooting and bird-watching or a tour of the stud. In the evening there are entertainments and activities for the young, dancing and discos as well as pictures, the collection of guns, or the Fabergé ornaments which had been given to Queen Alexandra to be inspected.
The Studs at Sandringham are among the Queen’s greatest interests, and she makes a number of private visits during the course of the year, staying at a farmhouse on the estate, finding the enjoyment and relaxation which comes from following a personal hobby. If her greatest interest lies in the breeding of bloodstock, there are many other happy memories which reach back to her early childhood; the grounds are beautiful, and at heart she is a countrywoman. She enjoys walking over the countryside with her dogs, and maintains a close interest in all the activities on the estate, where the Duke of Edinburgh has overall responsibility for its management, which is under the general supervision of her agent, to whom each of the Heads of Department report.
The Queen’s paramount interest was shared to a great extent by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Widowed by the death of King George VI, she took stock of her situation and found a new interest in the purchase and restoration of a remote castle in the extreme north of Scotland. The Castle of Mey was her personal link with the Scotland she loved, and in which she had been brought up. She also became engrossed in the turf; she bred and ran her own horses and seldom failed to attend the major race meetings. She supported the King staunchly during his reign; after his death she emerged as a strong, even dominant, personality, an active participant on Royal occasions, presenting a smiling and benevolent image and dressed so often in pastel shades with off-the-face hats. Now her life was her own, but she was often seen at Royal occasions and her annual appearances with members of her family at the gates of Clarence House in London, where she celebrated her birthday, ensured a crowd of well-wishers and a continuing interest in her life and activities until her death at the age of 101.
The estate today comprises about 20,000 acres, of which more than half are let to tenant farmers: the remainder include forestry land, the land actually farmed at Sandringham, the gardens and park, and saltings. Only the studs are managed separately. The Duke of Edinburgh is very interested in the farm, the improvement of stock and all projected innovations. For many years he has enjoyed watching and painting the prolific birdlife on the salt marshes bordering the Wash and, despite a programme of reclamation of 700 acres of the saltings included in the farm, forty-five acres were retained as a wildfowl reserve. When in residence, the Queen involves herself in local functions, just as Queen Mary before her visited the Women’s Institutes and presented the prizes for village schoolchildren. Prince Charles, too, makes two visits during the year and is Patron, with the Queen, of the Sandringham Flower Show in mid-summer.
After the war the gardens of Sandringham were opened to the public for the first time, a Country Park was established in 1968 and the House itself in Jubilee Year, 1977. In a programme of economy and refurbishment, ninety-one rooms in the south-east corner of the house were demolished, the Queen herself symbolically starting the work. Those rooms, built to accommodate the ever-increasing numbers of staff at the turn of the century, will never be missed. Park House, built by Albert Edward for his Comptroller, Sir William Knollys, and the childhood home of Diana, Princess of Wales, was given by the Queen to the Cheshire Foundation as a hotel adapted for use by people with disabilities.
Increasing mechanisation in agriculture brought a reduction in the number of employees and surplus properties have been sold off. Appleton, where Gerald and Louise Cresswell struggled in vain against the depredations of the Royal game-keepers and, later, the English home of Queen Maud of Norway and wartime residence in Norfolk of King George VI and his family, has been demolished.
The long road downhill through the pine-trees and bracken to Wolferton is full of memories: the sons of King George V racing on their bicycles; the carriages bringing the house party guests from the station; the funeral processions setting out from the church in the park, the Royal coffins on gun-carriages on the long journey to Windsor. At the end of the road is Wolferton Station: the ‘up’, or London-bound side is unremarkable – passengers had only to board the ‘special’ before it steamed away. We must remember the disconsolate Princess May’s parting from her husband and driving back in a closed carriage through the rain to York Cottage to stick photographs in her album with her sisters-in-law; the formal departure of Kaiser Wilhelm II after a difficult visit; Prince Edward and Prince Albert setting out for a new term at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, and the ceremonious leave-taking following Queen Victoria’s second visit. The ‘down-side’ is more elaborate: here Royal guests were met and entertained by the Prince and Princess of Wales while the wagon-loads of trunks and hat-boxes of their visitors were taken up to the house. Here, in her own room, the Princess of Wales presided over the ladies’ teacups, while on the other side of the entrance hall the Prince offered whisky and the air was redolent of cigars. ‘Down-side’ was for some years a museum which, with its costumes and memorabilia, was a poignant reminder of a past age, for the single track of rusty rails ends among the silver birches beyond the platform.
Sandringham is on the road to nowhere, and separated from much of the rest of the country by the vast expanse of flat, almost featureless Fens, yet some 100,000 visitors annually are attracted to this Royal home and many more enjoy the amenities of the Country Park. Once the joy of Albert Edward’s heart, and of his son, King George V, and grandson, King George VI, Sandringham remains a Royal home, mature now, carefully-tended and efficiently-managed. Lady Macclesfield – who, we remember, deplored the lack of ‘attraction of any sort’ – would have approved of the developments over the past century with mixed feelings. While she might have regarded the present accessibility of Sandringham to the public with something like concern, she could no longer have denied the existence of ‘attractions’ at this Royal estate.
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REFERENCES
Abbreviations:
Airlie Mabell, Countess of
Batt. Georgina Battiscombe
Buxton Aubrey Buxton
Cambridge HRH George, Duke of Cambridge
Cathcart Helen Cathcart
Cresswell Louise Cresswell
Donaldson Frances Donaldson
Fulford Roger Fulford
Gore John Gore
Hibbert Christopher Hibbert
Lee Sir Sidney Lee
Longford Elizabeth Longford
Magnus Sir Philip Magnus
Nicholson Sir Harold Nicholson
P-H James Pope-Hennessy
Rose Kenneth Rose
St. A. Giles St Aubyn
W-B Sir John Wheeler-Bennett
See ‘Works Consulted’
Chapter One: Early Days of a Prince
1. Stockmar, Memorandum, 1842
2. Magnus, p. 5
3. Gibbs, Diary.
4. Ibid.
5. Magnus, p. 14
6. Gibbs, Diary, Magnus, p. 10
7. Gibbs, Papers, Magnus p. 10
7a. Gibbs, Diaries, Magnus, p.16
8. Magnus, p. 15
9. Gibbs Papers, January 1856, Magnus, p. 14
10. Queen Victoria to Queen Augusta of Prussia, 1856
11. Queen Victoria’s Journal, Magnus, p. 23
12. Hon. E. Stanley, Letters, 27/7/48
13. Queen Victoria, Magnus, p. 26
14. Ibid.
15 The English Empress, p. 81
16. Batt., p. 28
17. Fulford, Dearest Child, p. 356
18. Batt. 28, Dearest Mama, p. 213
19. Queen Victoria, Letters, Vol. I, III
20. Magnus, p. 53
21. Queen Victoria, Idem
22. Fulford, Dearest Mama, p. 38
23. Fulford, Batt. p. 58-9
24. Magnus, p. 53
25.
26. T3 88, Batt., p. 36
27. Fulford, Dearest Child, p. 337-8.
28. Ibid.
29. QV Journal, p. 38
30. Fulford, Dearest Mama, p.186
31. Batt. p. 38
Chapter Two: Marriage
32. QV Journal, 5 Nov 1862
33. Magnus, p. 62
34. Batt., p. 41
35. Batt., p. 43
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Londonderry, M’ness of, Henry Chaplin, A Memoir, p. 22
39. Fulford, Dearest Mama, p.180
40. Quoted St Aubyn, p. 83
41. Macclesfield Papers., Batt., p. 55/6
42. Longford, p. 391
43. Queen Victoria to Theodore Martin,1863. Martin V
44. A Victorian Dean, Quoted Batt., p. 56
45. Batt. p. 59,
46. Fulford, Dearest Mama, p. 186
47. Dearest Mama, p. 212
&
nbsp; Chapter 3: Children
48 The Aristocracy, Lee, p. 170
49. Batt. p.58
50. QV to George, D of Cambridge, 8/7/1864. Private.
51. Ponsonby, p. 101
52. W.E Gladstone, Letters, Quoted Ponsonby, p. 101
53. Fulford, Dearest Mama, p. 278
54. Batt., p. 63
55. Batt., 65
56. Batt., p. 99
57. Batt., p. 79
58. Batt., p. 80.
59 9/11/1866. Batt., p. 81
60. 14/11/1866. Batt., p. 81
61. Macclesfield Papers. Batt., p. 83.
62. Pcess of W. to Gd. Dss of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, 14/3/09. P-H 328.
63. QA to Pcess of W. 21/1/08 P-H 328
64. Esher. I, p. 345
65. Batt., p. 122-3
66. 17/4/1871. Batt., p. 123
67. Somerset. 16/4/1871. Ibid.
68. Marie of Roumania, I, 43