Henry Lytton Cobbold

Since the 1990s, Knebworth Park Cricket Club has been trying to find a fit-for-purpose home that enables it to secure the crucial grants it needs to provide for a modern membership and current legislation.   We have been pleased to continue to support the club during these fifteen years – giving it time and extra financial support – while it has examined and consulted on every possibility.  There are very few options in this commercial world, and no perfect solution – every field and open space presents negatives – but if it keeps the club within our community, we have been pleased to weigh the negatives against the positives, and to consider the benefits for the wider community.

The one viable option the club has identified is the Jubliee Park field, opposite the Lytton Arms pub.  Jubilee Park is already a recreational space – and, as a site adjoining the Village Green, it is a place where we can continue to help the club by looking to donate the land to KHEPT, the community charity that already owns the Lytton Arms and is the majority shareholder of the Village Green management company.  Rent is a modern reality, but having a landlord that is a local charity with community priorities would give the club an extra chance of survival, and its neighbours extra access to monitoring the terms of its lease and day to day activity.  If the club does not survive, I suspect the pub will be next.   A pub needs “traffic” in the good sense of the word, to drink its real ale and eat its hot food.   A community needs activity, it needs young people, and sometimes it needs to look beyond the negatives and focus on the wider positives.  The long term consequences may be worse.

Here’s a community positive.  Our Village Open Day returns on Sunday 23^rd March, which means free entrance to Knebworth Park, Gardens and House for all residents of Knebworth village.  Please enter by St Mary’s Gate and bring proof that you live in the village… and do bear in mind, as you pass through the white gate, that the cricket club on your right does not exist but for the support of its community.  It will be gone next year unless you support it.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

There was a Changing of the Guard this New Year at Knebworth House.  Mr and Mrs Clarence, who have stood watch over the front gates since the 19^th Century, have retired to the flower bed alongside the kitchen garden.  They have been replaced by a couple from Dorset – beautifully crafted by the brilliant artists Stephen Pettifer and Alasdair Rennie from Coade Ltd., through a grant from The Country Houses Foundation.

Alasdair was keen to make the wings of the two creatures more naturalistic than their Victorian predecessors, but I didn’t want to lose the exaggerated silhouettes that looked so impressive on the old creatures.  So we compromised, and the gentleman, although he has beautiful bat wings, has larger and stickier-out ones that a real bat.  And the lady, well, she has beautiful angel wings, but larger and stickier-out than on a real angel.  At least all the real angels that I know!

If you are passing, do stop to admire them.  They look truly splendid – and, we trust, will keep watch over the gates of Knebworth House for another century or two.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

“5^th February 1974.  Dear Mr Condy – I don’t know quite how to put this, but when you kindly showed my wife and I the park I was struck by the obvious suitability of the area for a one day popular music concert.  I was not, I can assure you, going to take this any further, but by an amazing, and genuine coincidence I received the very next evening a phone call from the manager of a well-known group expressing interest in my company promoting an outdoor event, featuring this group.  I realise it is rather presumptuous of me but I wonder if you could possibly submit the following proposals to the Hon. David Lytton Cobbold…  By way of closing, I would like to emphasise that when I originally approached you, my interest in running a large scale medieval entertainment was genuine and not in any way an elaborate subterfuge,  Sincerely, Freddy Bannister.”

And the rest is history.  2014 marks the 40^th anniversary of Britain’s biggest and best rock venue.  Knebworth Park will celebrate in the summer with an exhibition in Knebworth House celebrating all 40 years of our rock concert history, and with the return of Sonisphere, the festival which ran successfully between 2009 and 2011. Sonisphere returns on the first weekend of July with another UK first for Knebworth Park – Metallica and Iron Maiden on the same bill.  These two bands together have 45 million “likes” on Facebook – that’s a lot of people to get excited about them playing at the same event.  And these two “well-known groups” want to be part of a “popular music concert” on our “suitable” hill, because 40 years later, they join a list of now-legendary names – such as the one pencilled in on the above letter by Mr Condy as “Lead Zeppelin” (sic) – who have made history in Knebworth Park!     

Happy 2014 to all!   

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

As we slip and slide, with trepidation, into another frosty winter we hope the weather will be kind on the towers and turrets of Knebworth House.  Sadly, we lost a piece of weathervane off the roof in November in the high winds.  The large piece of sharp copper had been blown loose and was hanging ready to drop.  The fire brigade kindly helped us to remove it.  The loss is a real shame, as it scars the façade that is our most prominent – and literal – public face, and which we work so hard to maintain.

But, as we batten down the hatches against the weather, the door remains open for the festive concert I mentioned last month.  If you haven’t done so already, we hope you are picking up a ticket for an evening (or matinee) performance of Christmas music with the brilliant virtuoso Tennessee guitarist Doyle Dykes, on Saturday and Sunday, 14^th and 15^th December.  As the frosty wind makes moan outside, we shall be decking the halls with boughs of holly, bringing in a figgy pudding and raising a cup of good cheer.  Happy Christmas to all!   

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

David Bowie has just announced his 100 favourite books and paid tribute to my great-great-great-grandfather Edward Bulwer Lytton by including his novel “Zanoni”.  I am happy to return the compliment by saying that I would include David Bowie in my top 20 favourite musicians – and he would be my No. 1 favourite to headline a concert in Knebworth Park.  Also in my top 20 favourite musicians would be the virtuoso Tennessee guitarist Doyle Dykes, and I am thrilled to announce that he is headlining a concert at Knebworth.  Doyle will be playing a Christmas concert of festive music in the Banqueting Hall of Knebworth House on Saturday and Sunday, 14^th and 15^th December (tickets available online at www.knebworthhouse.com).   

Some will know Doyle from the wonderful concerts he has given at St Martin’s Church in past years.  You may have a copy of his 2008 album “Bridging The Gap” which features his compositions “Knebworth Dream”, “At Swangleys Farm” and “On the Great North Road”.   Those who are familiar with Doyle’s breathtaking talent will need no encouragement to join us that weekend; those who are not, I urge you to come hear a truly world-class musician interpreting your favourite Christmas classics.  The format of the evening will be the same as Knebworth House’s Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” nights – with Christmas tree, choir, mulled wine and mince pies – and promises to be the perfect start to the holiday season.

After last year’s triumphant 15^th Anniversary, Knebworth House is taking a break from Charles Dickens this December, however if you can’t bear the thought of Christmas without a little Scrooge, we are selling the excellent recording of last year’s anniversary performance by Colin Greenslade as a digital download from a new Audio Download page in the Shop section of the Knebworth House website.  It is my great-great-great pleasure to recommend it!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

By the time you read this I don’t know whether Balcombe Village in West Sussex will be at war or at peace.  It has been the front line over the summer in the fracking debate – and, in the media, has sometimes looked like a war zone with flailing protesters being carried off by the authorities.  This resonates with the Lytton family as Balcombe Victory Hall – its Village Hall – is spectacularly decorated with beautiful murals by Neville, the 3^rd Earl of Lytton, my great-grandfather’s brother, of contrasting images of “War” and of “Peace”.

We are fortunate, at Knebworth House, not to have to confront police lines to get a glimpse of these beautiful works of art.  All you have to do it stand in line for our inadequate (for an interval) toilet facilities!  Hanging in Knebworth House’s ground floor passage are Neville’s sketches for these magnificent murals.  So, book in for one of our Christmas music concerts and experience the beauty of these designs – without the risk of being truncheoned by a policeman!  

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day” – would have been a better opening line to “Pride and Prejudice” on 16^th August, when the Chapterhouse Theatre Company performed Jane Austen’s novel in the beautiful setting of the sunken lawn of Knebworth House Gardens.  But – bucking the trend of this summer that only began in July – we got lucky with the weather!   Having rained all day, it turned into the perfect evening with a glorious sunset and the 500 Jane Austen fans, celebrating the novel’s 200^th anniversary, enjoyed the perfect picnic with Mr. Darcy.  Unless of course they were hoping he would get his shirt wet!

That opening line, for those who aren’t champion quiz-nighters, is actually the opening line of “Jane Eyre”.  Charlotte Bronte’s novel is more my kind of book.  If girls in bonnets are fretting about marrying a bloke in a big house – ask my wife – they are more likely to find hard graft and melodrama than dancing with Mr. Darcy!  I have always been surprised that my ancestor Emily Bulwer Lytton, aged nineteen, did not like “Jane Eyre” when it was published in 1847.  She would surely have related to Jane’s schooldays and traumatic childhood?  Then, this summer, I read Sarah Wise’s book “Inconvenient People” which has a whole chapter on Emily’s mother Rosina Bulwer Lytton, the “mad” wife who wouldn’t divorce her husband and who threatened to appear at any moment and ruin everything… and then I understood why Emily did not like “Jane Eyre”!  

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

Another important anniversary this month – but a more recent one than the stay of Grand Duke Michael of Russia.  This August marks the 10^th anniversary of the visit to Knebworth of Grand Duke Robbie of Stoke-on-Trent.  Ten years?!  It seems like last summer!  And if you don’t have the DVD (“What We Did Last Summer”), do remind yourself of how spectacular it was by watching one of the many YouTube clips.  I recommend “Robbie Williams Angels live at Knebworth”, which has a staggering 5 million views – okay, 4,701,685 when I last looked, but we make a habit of bragging about this show! 

At 375,000 people, we still believe it is the largest music event in British history.  The album “Robbie Williams Live at Knebworth” hit the Top Ten from Argentina to Saudi Arabia and, according to Wikipedia (it must be true!), has sold over 2 million copies.  The DVD was the biggest selling music DVD of all time when it was released – a No.1 in Norway, Germany… even Australia, where it sold 165,000 copies.  Just to consider all the pleasure that this one weekend in our village has spread across the globe makes me very proud.  I echo Robbie’s parting words as he left the stage on 3^rd August 2003, “Knebworth – I – love – you!”

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

Four hundred years ago, in 1613, the reign of the Romanov dynasty began in Russia with 16-year-old Mikhail Romanov.  One hundred years ago, in 1913, whilst his elder brother Tsar Nicholas was celebrating, for the last time, a Romanov centenary, his banished younger brother Grand Duke Michael was renting Knebworth House. 

Michael had married a divorcee, Natasha Brasova – his mother described the match as “unspeakably awful in every way” – and had been cut off by his brother and forced to live abroad.  The year Michael and his new wife spent at Knebworth was described by Natasha as the happiest year of her life, and photos in the Knebworth House Archive (many taken by Michael himself) show relaxed groups of family and friends (including members of the recently formed Ballets Russes) enjoying Knebworth House and Gardens.  Marking this centenary, we have assembled a collection of these photographs which will be on display in the house during open hours in July. 

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com

Apologies if I’ve been staring at you whilst you’ve been out shopping.   I am the June cover boy of Hertfordshire Life magazine.  Or rather Knebworth House is.  But I managed to get in the way.  Apparently there’s a whole rack of me at the Marks & Spencer’s Food Hall.  I hope it didn’t put you off your three-bean wrap!  It’s welcome publicity as we head towards the summer holidays, when Knebworth House and Country Park will be open seven days a week.

Before then, we have the Village Festival to look forward to, and I hope you will join the evening of Knebworth House Garden Tours – led by Kelly, our Head Gardener, and Clare, our Archivist – on the last Sunday of June.  The tours will be followed by a barbeque at the Garden Terrace Room, accompanied by a very fine local jazz band.  The garden will, I am sure, look splendid – and I promise not to get in the way of the view!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com