What lovely tributes to my father we have received! Thank you to the so many who have sent warm condolences and happy memories of David. He died at 1.20pm on Monday 9th May at home at Park Gate House surrounded by his family. As many of you know, he had not been well for some years. He had been suffering from Lewy Bodies Parkinsons, and we had long lost the greater part of his wonderful mind, good humour and bonhomie. Although the spark was still there, and there has been little I have treasured more in the last few years than to see his face light up when visited by his family and friends.
David was born in London in 1937, but came to live at Knebworth House on the death of his grandfather, Victor, in 1947. Both his grandfather and his parents, Kim and Hermione, had looked to pass the house to public institutions to ensure its survival. It had been refused, its liabilities too onerous. But at the end of the 1960s, David persuaded his parents to let him and his wife Chryssie take on the challenge by opening up the house, gardens and park to day visitors and for events. Through their hard work and perseverance Knebworth House and Park was no only saved from destruction and disassembly, but quickly gained national recognition as a treasured historic house and tourist destination, and then international recognition through the record-breaking series of legendary rock concerts that they spearheaded and hosted from 1974 onwards.
Standing for Hertfordshire in the European elections in 1979, and made a Deputy Lieutenant of the county in 1993, David was always a keen supporter of his local community. Having been involved with Bowes Lyon House Youth Centre in Stevenage in its early days, he was one of the founding members and long-standing Patron of the Stevenage Community Trust. Amongst his many contributions to the Parish of Knebworth, he is perhaps best remembered for his long Presidency of the Knebworth Twinning Association, for which he signed the charter at Knebworth House in 1990. His enthusiasm for this initiative is clear in the accompanying photograph, which also shows him sporting an injury from, I suspect, his other great passion, jousting. Having given a home to a jousting school at Old Knebworth Stables in the 1970s, he himself became the country’s oldest practising jouster, galloping at tilt in front of Knebworth House well into his seventies.
The 18th generation of the Lytton family to live at Knebworth House, David’s unique legacy will live on in the home he loved and worked so hard to preserve. There is no better expression of this than in the words of his great-great-grandfather, Edward Bulwer Lytton – and a personal favourite quote of his,
Ah! Happy he, whose later home as man
Is made where Love first spoke, and Hope began,
Where haunted floor dear footsteps back can give,
And in our Lares all our fathers live.
Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH
