{"id":547,"date":"2016-08-19T14:41:30","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T14:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/knebworthhouse.com\/blog\/?p=547"},"modified":"2016-08-19T14:41:30","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T14:41:30","slug":"august-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/knebworthhouse.com\/blog\/?p=547","title":{"rendered":"August 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mausoleum in Knebworth Park was broken into in the 1950s, so my grandmother Hermione had it bricked up.\u00a0 Towards the end of her life, she was keen to restore the building, so in 1999 we broke through the brick and replaced the door and the lock.\u00a0 We found that one of the coffins had been crowbarred open.\u00a0 Its lid sat loose.\u00a0 Clearly someone had not known how fantastically unlikely it would be for ever-short-of-cash Edward Bulwer Lytton \u2013 or any member of the Lytton family \u2013 to consign anything of monetary value to eternity.<\/p>\n

The coffin was his daughter\u2019s – my great-great-great-aunt, Emily Bulwer Lytton (1828-1848) – who died aged 19, in tragic and never fully explained circumstances.\u00a0 Around the same time as the discovery of her open coffin, we also discovered a box of letters that Emily wrote to her father from an Orthopaedic Institute in Germany, where she had been sent for three years for treatment of curvature of the spine.\u00a0 The letters are \u201ccross-written\u201d \u2013 the letter-writer turns the paper 90 degrees and writes over what they have already written to save paper and postage \u2013 so are very difficult for an untrained eye to read.\u00a0 Our Archivist Clare Fleck has spent the last 16 years transcribing the letters, and they tell a most extraordinary story of a troubled but much loved teenager – which I have just finished turning into a biography to be published at Christmas.<\/p>\n

To celebrate the completion of the manuscript and Emily\u2019s 188th<\/sup> birthday \u2013 27th<\/sup> June \u2013 Clare and I, and a collection of people who have contributed to the book, went back into the Mausoleum with a white rose from the Knebworth House Gardens, which we put into Emily\u2019s coffin before sealing the loose lid once and for all.\u00a0 It was a moving moment – and putting it in perspective for me is the fact that if I am fortunate enough to end up in this august company one day, and my descendants come and visit me on my 188th<\/sup> birthday, it will be the year 2150.\u00a0 How happy will my spirits be if there are still beautiful roses blooming in the Knebworth House Gardens in the second half of the next century!<\/p>\n

Henry Lytton Cobbold
\nwww.knebworthhouse.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mausoleum in Knebworth Park was broken into in the 1950s, so my grandmother Hermione had it bricked up.\u00a0 Towards the end of her life, she was keen to restore the building, so in 1999 we broke through the brick … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-16"],"yoast_head":"\nAugust 2016 - Henry Lytton Cobbold<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/knebworthhouse.com\/blog\/?p=547\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"August 2016 - Henry Lytton Cobbold\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Mausoleum in Knebworth Park was broken into in the 1950s, so my grandmother Hermione had it bricked up.\u00a0 Towards the end of her life, she was keen to restore the building, so in 1999 we broke through the brick … Continue reading →\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/knebworthhouse.com\/blog\/?p=547\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Henry Lytton Cobbold\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-19T14:41:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/knebworthhouse.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=547#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/knebworthhouse.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=547\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/knebworthhouse.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f15e48bf5e00572a561d40bb2c4078b5\"},\"headline\":\"August 2016\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-08-19T14:41:30+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/knebworthhouse.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=547\"},\"wordCount\":373,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/knebworthhouse.com\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"2016\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/knebworthhouse.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=547\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/knebworthhouse.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=547\",\"name\":\"August 2016 - 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