Henry Lytton Cobbold

The recent death of Frank Windsor – whom the older amongst us will remember as Detective Sergeant John Watt in “Z-Cars” – summons a happy memory of working with him at Knebworth House on the 1984 film “The Shooting Party”.  Frank Windsor played Glass, the gamekeeper, and his home in the film is our current Estate Office.  One of the pleasures of working on this film, which was about an autumnal weekend shooting party, was that the filming itself felt like one long weekend house party with some really wonderful house guests – James Mason, Dorothy Tutin, Edward Fox, Robert Hardy, Gordon Jackson… and of course Frank Windsor.

I am not one for shooting, but I do enjoy Knebworth House being used for entertaining.  It could be said that that has always been the House’s primary purpose, over its 500 year existence.  So this year has been very odd in that nobody – apart from its permanent residents – has stayed overnight in the house since January.  We did have a couple of months being able to receive day visitors in the House’s formal rooms.  But this must have been one of the House’s quietest years in all its long history.

So, nostalgic for weekend guests of old, this month’s photo – recently surfaced on eBay – is of a house party at the end of the 19^th Century when Lord Strathcona (1820-1914) was renting Knebworth House.  We’ve been trying to work out what the chap in the foreground is doing.  Our best guess is that he is setting up a camera to photograph the guests.  If so, it looks like the ladies in the background on the terrace will need some persuading to take part.  This is a problem I know well, especially at this time of year when I realise we have no recent family photos to go into Christmas Cards for American friends and relations.  I might send this one instead.  They haven’t seen us in so long, we may get away with passing ourselves off as these fine-hatted folk.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Lots of lovely comments about the Drive In Garden Party in the Park in September, including the following on Twitter from the headline act Rick Astley (@rickastley), “We had a fantastic time playing the @Pubinthepark Drive In Garden Party at Knebworth last night.  So good to be there with you performing again and see everyone having a great time while still being socially distant.  It can be done!”  We certainly felt that, once again, a Knebworth Park concert was being pioneering.  The weekend proved that a ‘socially distanced’ outdoor concert can work well, and keep its audience safe in these difficult times.  I hope the event returns next summer – although I very much hope that by then the times will not be as difficult.

It was also a great pleasure to host the Knebworth Response Team Volunteer and Community Awards at the beginning of September.  Again, a successful ‘socially distanced’ outdoor gathering – before the rules got tougher a couple of weeks later.  It was inspiring to hear so many stories of the great work going on in our community during the lockdown and beyond.  A huge thank you to all those involved in ‘Knebworth Together’.

As a thank you to our visitors and season ticket holders for their continued support this difficult summer we will be extending our Park and Gardens season for the first time to include weekends and half-term in October.  Over half-term the Gardens will be decorated with pumpkins, and although – at time of writing – masks are not required, if you wish to enter into the spirit of seasonal dress up, it will not be inappropriate in the surrounds of Knebworth’s very own gothic castle.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Drive In Garden Party Knebworth Park September 2020

2020 was always going to be a summer of big number anniversaries for Knebworth Park.  45 years since Pink Floyd played ‘Dark Side of The Moon’ and introduced ‘Wish You Were Here’.  40 years since The Beach Boys played their last UK concert in their original line up.  30 years since Paul McCartney, Elton John, Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, Genesis, and Pink Floyd again, played the Nordoff Robbins charity concert that saw Knebworth Park beamed to all the corners of the world courtesy of MTV…  So we were disappointed when, at the beginning of the year, it looked as though we were one of the few venues that had no live music scheduled this summer.

Well, how things have changed since the beginning of the year.  It now looks as though we will be one of very few venues that will actually host live music this summer.  Pub In The Park, which usually holds an annual event in St Albans, has scheduled a ‘Drive In’ concert in Knebworth Park on the second weekend of this month.  It will be something a little different from a traditional Knebworth Park concert – more of a ‘Garden Party’, with the audience appropriately socially distanced – however we are delighted that, after all, there will be a ‘Knebworth 2020’ concert.  I hope on future anniversaries of this weekend, we will look back with affection and remember how special and rare live music was in the summer of 2020.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@Henry CobboldKH

Next year we will be celebrating 50 years of the Knebworth Barns.  The two main barns were moved to their current location on the edge of Knebworth House Gardens in the Spring of 1971.  They are both original farm barns.  One came from Lodge Farm and the other from Manor Farm.  The one from Manor Farm was moved intact, on giant wooden wheels, pulled by a steam traction engine.  At the time it was the largest building to have been moved intact in the U.K.

Since 1971 there have been four different caterers running the Barns.  We started with the local company Simmons, then I believe we were with Lyons, then we ran it ourselves for a spell as Lytton Catering, then in the year 2000 we teamed up with the international catering company Sodexo.  On the 1^st of September, we move from Sodexo to partner with another international catering company, RA Venues.  We are looking forward to the exciting changes that RA will bring to Knebworth Barns.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

menus from 1973 (right)

“The lunatic is on the grass…” sang Roger Waters of Pink Floyd in Knebworth Park 45 year ago this month.  In Pink Floyd mythology this line – from the album ‘Dark Side of The Moon’ – refers to being told to ‘Keep off the grass’ by signs around King’s College Cambridge, and Waters’ feeling that not letting people on the grass is where real insanity lies.  Well, finally, after three long months of climbing the walls we have been allowed out on the grass, most, I do hope, with our sanity and health intact.  It has been a distressing time, and the relief now for those able to spend time outside with loved ones is palpable.

At time of writing we have been able to open our Park (but not Adventure Playground), Gardens and Dinosaur Trail, and have been greatly heartened by the enthusiastic response from visiting families.  Also encouragingly popular is the one special event we have managed to salvage for July.  In association with Luna Cinema we are hosting drive-in cinema in Knebworth Park every evening from 5^th July to 19^th July.  There is something for everyone in the selection of movies, and although we will all be socially distanced in our cars I suspect the ‘Grease Sing-Along’ will rival a Knebworth Concert crowd.  So roll up… the Luna Flics are on the grass!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

When a tree breaks out in all its blossom or a flower breaks out in full bloom, and nobody sees it… what is that called?  A shame?  A blooming shame?  Maybe just, Nature?  It’s been hard to watch the passing of a beautiful May without any visitors at all in Knebworth House Gardens.  I can print for you an image of the Gardens’ ‘champion’ snowdrop tree in all its May splendour.  In black & white at least you get a sense of its stunning blanket of snow blossom.  But it’s a poor match for seeing it for real.

Nature says May will be round again next year.  As will the many Knebworth Park events that have had to be cancelled this summer.  And who knows?  Maybe the upcoming summer months may see the Gardens deemed safe to open.  The Government uses a broad brush in making these determinations, seeing us as more Alton Towers or Legoland than a Garden Centre.  But if it does, Knebworth House Gardens will be ready with any required precautions to welcome you, and ‘since to look at things in bloom’ does wonders for the general gloom, let’s hope we can do so safely and soon.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

There is no printed edition of Knebworth Parish News this month because of the Covid-19 lockdown, so for the first time in 15 years I find myself not submitting a column.  Instead I post a message my son put on the We Are From Knebworth Facebook page in April:

We had a call yesterday (16/04/20) from a neighbour about a young deer in Knebworth Park in a bad way… On closer inspection this yearling had been severely attacked by a dog. We have since put it out of its misery.

Just a reminder that if you are enjoying the public rights of way through Knebworth Park – to please keep your dogs on a lead and keep to the designated path.

The hinds (female red deer) will be birthing in the next few weeks, and they often will temporarily leave their new-borns disguised in areas of long grass. Please take care not to approach them.

Many thanks, Edward.

There are lovely walks around Knebworth Park on the Public Footpath network, and it is a pleasure to see them being enjoyed, especially during this time when Knebworth Park has to remained closed.  But, please, remember Knebworth Park is not a public park.  Access at this time should only be on foot and on Public Footpaths.  Stay safe.  Stay well.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

So often in the preservation and restoration of Knebworth House we are chasing our tail.  In almost all cases we are working to put back what was once there, or to patch up what is there so that it lasts a little longer.  Most disheartening is when restoration work that we have already completed starts to fail, as has happened recently with the north-west tower.  The render that was replaced in the 1990s cracked in the hot dry weather last summer.

So I am especially delighted, this month, to celebrate the completion of an improvement to Knebworth House!  The Watchman’s Tower was restored externally a year ago, but since then we have been waiting for oak from our woods to dry so that we could construct an internal staircase.  Before the Second World War there were floors inside the Tower, and probably wooden ladders connecting them – but we can comfortably say that there was never anything as beautiful as the new oak staircase that has now been designed and built for the Tower by Chau Lee and Andy Singleton (www.ecovril.com), who live in Knebworth Park.  It is a stunning piece of work.

All the materials have been sourced from within a few yards of Andy and Chau’s home (all but the Yorkshire rope handrail), and all the work done locally – including the iron bannisters which were fashioned at Nup End out of an old Estate fence, reuniting the iron with wood it has lived with for generations!  Chau and Andy’s work is a triumph.  I encourage you to come and admire it this summer.  Progress!

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

staircase with bannisters

source materials

Chau

Andy

I was delighted to be one of the first through the doors of The Station pub when it reopened on Valentine’s Day.  Having been inside the empty and unkempt building two months earlier, the transformation was startling.  What a great job the Parish Council and new publicans Becky and Lloyd Willis have done in bringing this important community hub back to life after three long years.  Fantastic.  A great day for Knebworth.

Because I was first in, I was able to pop my head into the Ladies – don’t be alarmed, I won’t make a habit of it – to admire two of the framed poster bills from the turn of the last century that we found in the Knebworth House Archive to contribute to the decoration of the pub.  One of these promises that “Better Health Awaits You” if you drink milk “direct from the cow” via Swangley’s Dairy Farm – “Phone Knebworth 34.”

To save you making the call – if you fancy some milk direct from the cow after your glass of wine at The Station – here’s a useful map of how to get from The Station Hotel to Swangley’s Farm, also from our Archive.  You’ll notice there was no Co-op to pass in those days.  Indeed no High Street.  Only the newly named Station Road (formally Aston Road) leading to the new little hamlet of Knebworth Station.

For more history of our village, do visit Knebworth House on our Parish Open Day on Sunday 22^nd March.  We celebrate the start of our 2020 Summer Season by inviting all residents of Knebworth Parish to visit Knebworth House, Park, Gardens, Adventure Playground & Dinosaur Trail as our guests.  Please use the Old Knebworth entrance at St Mary’s Church and bring this magazine to let us know that you are a neighbour.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

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 19^th 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