When posed with the question why Cliveden House is a treasured escape for Anglore House editors, the answer hardly ever touches on the enrapturing opulence or notable international allure. The response rather falls to the remarkable details which punctuate every moment of the unambiguously British experience. The quintessential distillation of all spells England casts on the heart seemingly swirls together behind the grand walls of this one house. The seventeenth century stately home converted into a hotel evokes Berkshire hospitality at its finest, giving fire to the very feeling which makes this country home for so many: the humble calm that our journey is enveloped by the past and present in every given moment.
The English are a set who punctuate life by seasons and traditions all while quietly fine-tuning the ways of the past to ensure we are right on time with the future, but never too early for it. For every experience, whether watching the races at Royal Ascot, enjoying a picnic in Kensington Gardens, or checking into a historical country hotel for a weekend, there is a humble knowing that centuries of society made the very same steps before. In the case of Cliveden House – a luxurious country hotel rooted ever so deeply in power, salacious politics and a nation’s utter devotion to country – the Berkshire retreat is a place to where we return to humbly walk one stage where sensational history and change have danced together for the past 350 years.
The second Duke of Buckingham built Cliveden in 1666 as a gift for his mistress, Anna-Maria the Countess of Shrewsbury; the Duke later killed her husband in a duel. The original mansion and its subsequent replacement, built in 1824, were both destroyed by fire. The current mansion as it stands was built in 1851 for the second Duke of Sutherland and sold – to the dismay of Queen Victoria but to the delight of London’s society set – to the American Astor dynasty in 1893.
The estate rose steadily in fame and notoriety over the centuries as a societal harbourage for legendary dinner parties and fabled soirées, in great credit to the extraordinary line of chatelaines who stepped into Anna-Maria’s shoes over the centuries: Elizabeth Villiers, whose salacious affair with the king shuffled Britain’s politics; Harriet the Duchess of Sutherland, a famed society hostess and ”Mistress of the Robes” to Queen Victoria; and of course, the alluring Nancy Astor, an American-born, British socialite who arguably reigns as one of the more influential hostesses in English history – and the first ever woman to sit as an MP in British parliament.
Yet, there is no chatelaine quite as infamous as Cliveden’s swimming pool. Enter the Profumo affair – a sentence in political history so scandalous it earned a scene in The Crown and a rather cheeky, naughtily decent cocktail namesake one can order in the Cliveden bar.
Former Secretary of State for War John Profumo was a guest of a midsummer pool party at Cliveden in 1961, hosted by the Astors. It was at the pool that Christine Keeler, the nineteen-year-old mistress of a Russian spy, caught the eye of the Conservative politician. His brief extramarital affair sparked one of England’s more notorious political downfalls and, in the eyes of the government, a national security risk. Profumo denied the affair to the House of Commons which was later proved a falsehood, igniting the end of his career and an infamous weakening of Harold Macmillan’s government.
Though perhaps risqué in consequence at moments, the legendary parties thrown by the Astor family and their predecessors made the house an iconic setting for London society and Europe’s beau monde, creating the Cliveden Set. The famous country affairs attracted the world’s most prominent characters of the century, including Sir Charles Chaplin, a frequent guest of the Astors during the 1930s. The great British actor is quoted as saying “…Lady Astor would have made a wonderful actress. She was a charming hostess and I have to thank her for many wonderful parties, which gave me the opportunity of meeting many of the illustrious of England.”
As many of Cliveden’s more famous guests and prominent figures over the years, Chaplin inspired the name of one of the hotel’s 47 rooms. From Cornelius Vanderbilt and Rudyard Kipling to Lord Mountbatten and the Prince of Wales, each of the rooms and furnishings is inspired by the vibrant characters in Cliveden’s history – including the British Royal Family.
Cliveden is steeped in regal visits over the centuries, hosting every British monarch since George I. Queen Victoria famously travelled to Cliveden by boat to take tea at the secluded Spring Cottage alongside the River Thames. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II made childhood memories at Cliveden, frequenting the estate in her youth with the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. And perhaps most globally broadcasted, Meghan Markle stayed at the hotel the night before her Windsor nuptials to Prince Harry; she and the now famous Givenchy wedding dress were driven by Rolls Royce down Cliveden’s iconic gravel drive that historic May morning.
The Astor family left Cliveden as a residence in the late 1960s. The estate-turned-hotel, formal gardens and all 376 surrounding acres of parkland are now owned by the National Trust – one of the most celebrated organisations in Britain for the permanent preservation of the kingdom’s most beautiful, historically significant buildings and lands.
Cliveden House endures in modern day as a glittering seat for the town and country sets, known both at home in England and on the continent as one of the finest countryside hotels in the world. Walking through the grandiose, wood-panelled lobby of Cliveden today, bedecked with imposing oil portraits of its famous chatelaines, it does feel like a step into an England from another time. A moment when perhaps Lady Nancy Astor would glide down the staircase, slipping into a candlelit winter soirée in the French Dining Room – a sumptuous, Parisian interior William Waldorf Astor had designed as a recreation of the eighteenth century dining at Château d’Asnières. Or perhaps the nostalgia is sparked when one retreats to the politically sensational pool for a swim and tea service, echoes of scandal still floating in the air with the bees, any given moment enveloped so miraculously between the past and present.
When we are asked why Cliveden is the retreat for our family, the answer is simply that the hotel evokes everything Englishness is: a life anchored to tradition while flirting quite unapologetically with the wonders of the present. Cliveden House has persisted as a stage of power, politics and pleasure where so many characters in history have had a moment to walk across. There is something wondrously humbling to think perhaps, for one fleeting moment, that our own journey shares that stage.
All imagery provided by the Cliveden House press team. Thank you Cliveden House for so graciously opening the curtain to the estate’s decadenet history.
