Henry Lytton Cobbold

So here’s a course of events that’s as convoluted as… well, the plumbing in Knebworth House.  A film company wants an antique silk-topped dressing table removed from a bedroom that’s to play the part of a hotel room.  The dressing table is stored temporarily in a passageway.  Whilst it is there, a water pipe bursts in the floor directly above it.  The water seeps under the glass top of the dressing table and irredeemably stains the antique silk.

The floorboards are lifted in the floor above and it is discovered that the cast iron water pipe – well over a hundred years old – has corroded with age and is failing along its length.  Pulling up further carpets and floorboards, the pipe goes on and on, and all along its length there are signs that the iron is nearing the end of its life.  So it is not simply a case of fixing the leak, it is a case of replacing the whole pipe.

But of course this is not the only cast iron pipe to have been plumbed into Knebworth House at that time.  After the original lead pipes of the 1880s, we suspect there was a modernising to cast iron plumbing in Edwardian times – probably when Lord Strathcona, Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, was renting the house before the First World War.  Lord Strathcona had laid the Canadian Pacific Railway, so laying iron pipes through Knebworth House was not going to be too much of a challenge for him.  If you’re pleased I’ve had a wash through the years, you’ll join me in being glad that he did.  But it is rather more of a challenge for us to consider replacing every cast iron pipe in Knebworth House.  Ouch.  Perhaps we could repurpose them as a sprinkler system.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

It’s that exciting time of year when large boxes cram the Reception of our Estate Office.  This is the arrival of new stock for the Knebworth Park Gift Shop.  Boxes and boxes of fluffy dinosaurs and medieval knight-wear for the crusading pre-schooler, and of course many bespoke Knebworth House gifts that are only available in this shop.  Nowhere else in the world can you buy a stylishly illustrated Knebworth House Tea Towel, or a yummy pot of Knebworth House honey made by Knebworth House Garden bees from sweet-scented Knebworth House Garden flowers.  So if you are looking for a unique Knebworth gift to take when visiting friends and relations, look no further than the Knebworth House Gift Shop.

I’m afraid this year we haven’t made a Knebworth House jigsaw.  The one in this photo we believe is an historic bootleg.  We spotted it on eBay.  We should be disapproving of it rather than enjoying it, but it has been fun seeing if we know where all the bits of Knebworth House fit.  Not so very different from our regular task of collecting the pieces of fallen stucco from around the house and trying to figure out where the holes are that they came from!  You’ll be pleased to hear that we know Knebworth House well enough to have successfully completed the jigsaw.  I hope one day we will have similar success completing the jigsaw of restoration of the actual house.

Any jigsaw aficionados in the village, my mother Chryssie – in the process of downsizing – has a number of fun jigsaws she is looking to exchange for some she hasn’t done.  Do contact her if you would like to trade.  We’ll see you at the Parish Open Day on Sunday 26^th March.  Details on the back of this magazine, which, if you bring to St Mary’s gate on the day gets you free entry to everything… including a Gift Shop overflowing with world-exclusives!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Winter is always a race to get some repairs and maintenance in before we open again in the spring.  But there is never really a good time, as we continue to have film shoot inquiries throughout the year.  This winter, thanks to some good film bookings last year – and the welcome return of Liam Gallagher – we have been able to make a sufficient donation to the Knebworth House Education and Preservation Trust that the charity has felt able to tackle the urgent problem of a brace of disintegrated chimneys at the southern end of the house.  The only thing holding these 1880s chimneys together is the twisting vines of Virginia creeper.

We aimed to get the scaffold up before Christmas and down before a film booking in February.  Of course what happens is that when you are up there and you pick away the broken stucco and dissolved brick, you find that the problem goes much deeper than is apparent on the surface.  Should you – while you have the scaffold up – try and find some more money and fix the problem below?  But that would mean extending the scaffold hire into the film booking.  The film company has not booked a house with one corner covered in scaffold.

It’s a dilemma we’ve faced before, and one we’ll face again.  We need the work to pay for future problems, so future problems are noted and covered up for another day.  The scaffold comes down with only the absolutely necessary work completed.  Two steps forward, one step back.  But I have learnt to look at scaffold as a positive thing.
Scaffold = Progress.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

What are your New Year wishes for 2023?  I would like to see traffic taken out of our Conservation Areas, and re-routed on fit-for-purpose new roads.  I’d like to see a plan for a new safe roundabout junction on Park Lane between the new developments.  I’d like to see a safe drop-off zone planned for the new Primary School, something we’ve never managed to achieve for our existing Primary School.  I’d like to see the pedestrian tunnel under the Railway Station opened up to the High Street side of the village…  So many New Year wishes!

New Year wishes should come with a flush of optimism, but the truth is I’m not optimistic for any of the above.  Highways don’t want new roads, they want all local traffic kettled through the centre of the village.  Mini-roundabouts, although we have three that work fine in the village, are now ‘against policy’.  Village Primary schools should not have drop off zones, because children should walk to school.  And opening up the pedestrian tunnel, well that’s much too expensive to contemplate…

So I’ll settle for a New Year resolution, to keep campaigning for all of the above.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

The very best wishes for Christmas from Martha, me and all at Knebworth House and Park.  Whatever the weather this holiday time – and in such a bizarre weather year, I don’t think we’d be surprised if it was bright & balmy or blowing a blizzard – may your hearths be hearty and healthy… and your heating bills arrive when your sense of humour is still riding high from the jokes in your crackers.

I recall in the 1970s we would hang blankets in the corridors of Knebworth House to keep the heat in the corner of the house that we lived in.  Then, when the charity was created, and was able to afford a new boiler for the public rooms, we took down all the blankets in the hope that some of the heat would make it down the corridor – particularly to our bedrooms – where we lived under layers of jumpers and coats.

I suspect, this winter, many of us will be layering up rather than turning the heating up.  So here’s to ridiculous Christmas jumpers, warm full hearts and warm hearty laughter – and perhaps a hot toddy or two (or Horlicks for me) – this Hertfordshire holidays!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Old Knebworth calling.  Can you hear us?  We would jump on the Tube to come visit you down in New Knebworth, but there isn’t one.  Because we are not in north London.  Despite what Hertfordshire’s Local Transport Plan 4 seems to think.  We are a rural community that relies on the car to get our children to Primary School, to collect our groceries, to catch a train, to visit the doctor, the dentist, the post office…

We love walking and cycling, but some of us aren’t 25 anymore, some of us have disabilities, some of us would rather not set off in the pouring rain to hang grocery bags off our handlebars or walk our seven-year-old children or grandchildren to school and then walk back in time to set off to work.  Yes, sorry to spoil the dream, but some of us can’t cycle or walk to work.  Some of us need roads, and parking spaces, and safe drop off points, and a choice of routes that don’t mean we’re kettled into traffic lights and traffic jams by a policy that wants to “reduce the ease and convenience of car use” (LTP4 p.30).

So yes, we know how important it is to respond by 7^th November to the ‘North Hertfordshire Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan’ consultation.  We just wish it was a consultation on some pro-active and imaginative solutions to Knebworth’s 19^th Century road and junction infrastructure that looked to ease local traffic flow in Knebworth rather than frustrate it, and had a more realistic answer to Knebworth’s traffic problems than simply ‘don’t use cars’.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

The sad and tumultuous events of the last month lead me, for the third time this year, to publish a photograph of my grandfather, Cameron ‘Kim’ Cobbold (1904-1987), who lived with his wife Hermione (née Bulwer Lytton) in Knebworth House from 1948 to 1971.  Kim has been much in our minds during the reminiscences of the extraordinary life our late Queen, as he was her Lord Chamberlain from 1963 to 1971.  The Lord Chamberlain is the most senior officer of the Royal Household, effectively the Sovereign’s public (as opposed to private) secretary.

By chance I stumbled upon his brief case a few days after the Queen’s death (see photo).  It is locked, and so far I have not been able to find the key.  Tantalisingly, it clearly has a number of things inside it still.  If there’s any secrets about the Queen, I shall be sure not to let you know!

The Queen came to lunch at Knebworth House at the beginning of my grandfather’s tenure of this role.  It was the day she opened the Q.E.2 Hospital in Welwyn Garden City.  My mother recalls that “after lunch we sat under the big Oak tree in the garden, and Henry was brought down to be introduced to her.  (Aged 1) He was just walking.  Neither were that impressed with each other!  (May it be recorded that I have been very much impressed by her ever since.)  I remember Hermione, trying to tempt the Queen with one of Mr Crocker’s peaches from the greenhouse.” (Mr Croker was the sole Knebworth House gardener at the time).

A small moment in a remarkable life that will not make it into the history books, but a memory that will always be treasured at Knebworth House.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

A love of dogs is evident all over Knebworth House and Gardens.  From the affectionate remembrances on the stones in the Pet Cemetery to the many different types of dogs depicted in the decorations of Knebworth House.  I am sure I have told the story before of my Grandfather, Kim, wanting his female labradors in his Cobbold crest – not acceptable in the official crest, but something we were able to change when the crest was added to the restored northern end of Knebworth House.

A love of Knebworth Park is evident in all dogs.  I remember when Martha and I brought home two rescue Great Danes, whose early life had been cooped up and neglected.  First they saw our back yard, and they bounded with excitement.  Then they saw our Garden, and their excitement doubled.  Then they saw Knebworth Park…

DogFest returns to Knebworth Park this month, on Saturday 10th & Sunday 11th,  9:30am – 5:00pm.  Every possible excitement for dogs and dog lovers in on offer, from dog diving to hay bale racing and agility challenges, from advice and tips from experts to  all manner of competitions and shows.  And of course the Big Dog Walk though the Park, raising money for the Dogs Trust.  Created by dog-lovers for dog-lovers, and hosted in dog-loving Knebworth.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

My father, David Cobbold, was always delighted that his birthday fell on Quatorze Julliet, the French national holiday.  Even if he couldn’t be in his second favourite country that day, it made him happy to know that in town squares and villages all over France, couples were dancing to accordions and fireworks were lighting up the sky.  So 14^th July – which would have been his 85^th birthday – was the perfect day to celebrate his life with a Memorial picnic on the lawn in front of Knebworth House.

Tributes were paid by David’s brother Rowland, who recalled their 1940s childhood at Lodge Farm; David’s school and university friend, Lindsay Bury, recalled David’s National Service in the air force in Canada and his colourful Cambridge years, sneaking my mother Chryssie into his college rooms;  Stevenage Councillor Stephen Booth remembered David’s candidacy to represent Hertfordshire in the European elections in 1979, when he got the fifth highest Liberal vote in the country (but disappointingly no seat); Old Knebworth Village Green (which David established) resident Rob Smith (pictured) spoke of David’s commitment to local causes and initiatives, in particular the Knebworth Twinning Association, and it was a wonderful surprise to welcome Marie-Geneviève Coutand et Marie-Françoise Bodin from Chatelaillon, who came over especially for the Memorial.

Alongside the memories, David’s favourite songs were performed by his adopted Ugandan sons, Danny and Harry Matovu, his grandson Edward Lytton Cobbold and his son-in-law Demian Dorelli.  Carolyn Allen, who in 1973, aged 19, performed all summer long at Knebworth House in the Edward Bulwer Lytton Centenary theatricals and dinners, performed Noel Gay’s “For All You Mean To Me”.  To round off a magical evening, Mary Hopkin’s daughter, Jessica Lee Morgan (also pictured, in the distance), performed her mother’s 1968 hit “Those Were The Days”:

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day…   

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

What a wonderful month of festivals, fetes and jubilees June was!  A welcome return to traditional summer festivities after two difficult years.   Having been on the Knebworth Festival Committee for a number of years at the beginning of the century, I was delighted to see the Knebworth Festival back in full form this year (although sad I was away at a family wedding for the ‘Fun Day’).  Thank you to the current committee for all their hard work putting such a full and fun programme together.

I am also delighted that Knebworth Park was back hosting a ‘headline’ Knebworth concert.  The two Liam Gallagher shows on Jubilee Weekend were our first single day concerts (as opposed to a weekend festival) since the Red Hot Chili Peppers visited 10 years ago in 2012, and our biggest since Robbie Williams visited 19 years ago in 2003.  These events, by their nature, cause some disturbance to you, our neighbours – it is impossible to get that many people (more than the population of Stevenage) in and out of a field without a traffic jam, and there will always be some determined to head in an unintended direction – but we thank you for your forbearance and support on these odd summer weekends.  Knebworth Park is a unique venue nationally, and these events give huge pleasure and wonderful memories to, now, many generations.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH