Is somebody trying to tell me something, naming a retirement suite after me?! Martha and I were shocked to discover that McCarthy & Stone, builders of Lowe House in the High Street, have given Lytton family names to most of their retirement apartments, including ‘The Henry’, a two-bed, and ‘The Martha’, a one-bed. Of course McCarthy & Stone may have a different Henry and Martha in mind – however, they are also advertising ‘The Robert’ and ‘The Edith’ (my great-great-grandparents), ‘The Constance’ and ‘The Edwin’ (my great-great-aunt, and uncle Edwin Lutyens), ‘The Edward’ and ‘The Alexander’ (my two great-uncles, known as Antony and John), ‘The Tate’, ‘The Todd’ and ‘The Kipling’ (Knebworth House’s 19th Century housekeeper, valet and gardener)… and, if that wasn’t association enough, ‘The Lytton’. At least with McCarthy & Stone’s 2015 retirement development ‘Constance Place’ we were asked first if we approved, by North Herts District Council.
As with Constance Place, in most instances I am happy for my ancestors’ names to be used in connection with Knebworth buildings – and in the case of the Lowe House apartments it is nice to see other members of Knebworth House household remembered – but it is odd not to be asked, and it is especially odd to have my own name used when I spent most of the first decade of this century trying to stop Lowe’s Yard being developed in this way. I worked hard, with the support of Peter Lowe, to put forward an alternative plan for the High Street, opening it up with a Village Green (images remain online at www.knebworthoptionsreport.org, the last page of ‘Appendices 1 & 2’).
So I hope you don’t think I had anything to do with ‘The Henry’. In the same way I hope you don’t think my family had anything to do with ‘Lytton Heights’, a development which has been signposted across the village for some time. In that instance the developer, Cala Homes, said they didn’t know there was a Lytton family living here, they’d named it after the pub!
Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH