Cliveden
Cliveden (pronounced ) is an English country house and estate in the care of the National Trust in Buckinghamshire, on the border with Berkshire. The Italianate mansion, also known as Cliveden House, crowns an outlying ridge of the Chiltern Hills close to the South Bucks villages of Taplow and Burnham. The main house sits above the banks of the River Thames, and its grounds slope down to the river. There have been three houses on this site. The first was built in 1666 and burned down in 1795, while the second house was constructed around 1824 and was also destroyed by fire, in 1849. The present Grade I listed house was built in 1851 by the architect Charles Barry for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland. Cliveden has been the home to a Prince of Wales, two dukes, an earl, and finally the Viscounts Astor. As the home of Nancy Astor, wife of the 2nd Viscount Astor, Cliveden was the meeting place during the 1920s and 1930s of the Cliveden Set, a group of political intellectuals. Lat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Cliveden Set
The Cliveden set were an upper-class group of politically influential people active in the 1930s in the United Kingdom, prior to the Second World War. They were in the circle of Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, the first female Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament to take up her seat. The name comes from Cliveden, a stately home in Buckinghamshire that was Astor's country residence. The "Cliveden Set" tag was neologism, coined by Claud Cockburn in his journalism for the communist newspaper ''The Week (1933), The Week''. His notion of an upper class pro-German conspiracy was widely accepted by opponents of Appeasement in the late 1930s. It was long accepted that the aristocracy (class), aristocratic Germanophile social network supported friendly relations with Nazi Germany and helped create the 1930s policy of appeasement. John L. Spivak, writing in 1939, devoted a chapter to the Cliveden Set. After the end of World War II in Europe, the discovery of the N ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Nancy Astor
Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor was born in Danville, Virginia and raised in Greenwood, Virginia. Her first marriage, to socialite Robert Gould Shaw II, was unhappy and ended in divorce. She then moved to England and married American-born Englishman Waldorf Astor in 1906. After her second husband succeed to his father's peerage and entered the House of Lords, she entered politics as a member of the Unionist Party (now the Conservative Party) and, at the by-election caused by his elevation, won his former seat of Plymouth Sutton in 1919, becoming the first woman to sit as an MP in the House of Commons. During her time in Parliament, Astor was an advocate for temperance, welfare, education reform and women's rights. She was also an ardent anti-Catholic and anti-communist, and received criticism for her an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Profumo Affair
The Profumo affair was a major scandal in British politics during the early 1960s. John Profumo, the 46-year-old Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, had an extramarital affair with the 19-year-old model Christine Keeler beginning in 1961. Profumo denied the affair in a statement to the House of Commons in 1963; weeks later, a police investigation proved that he had lied. The scandal severely damaged the credibility of Macmillan's government, and Macmillan resigned as Prime Minister in October 1963, citing ill health. The fallout contributed to the Conservative government's defeat by the Labour Party in the 1964 general election. When the Profumo affair was revealed, public interest was heightened by reports that Keeler may have been simultaneously involved with Captain Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché, thereby creating a possible national security risk. Keeler knew both Profumo and Ivanov through her friendship with Stephen W ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor
Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, DL (19 May 1879 – 30 September 1952) was an American-born English politician and newspaper proprietor. He was a member of the Astor family. He was active in minor political roles. He was devoted to charitable projects, and with his more famous wife Nancy became a prominent fixture in upper class English society. Early life Astor was born in New York City. He was the eldest son of William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, and Mary Dahlgren Paul. His younger brothers were John Rudolph Astor (who died young) and John Jacob Astor V, Baron Astor of Hever. He spent much of his life travelling and living in Europe before his family settled in England in 1889. There Waldorf attended Eton College and New College, Oxford, where he excelled as a sportsman, earning accolades for both fencing and polo. R. J. Q. Adams, "Astor, Waldorf, second Viscount Astor", in ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
London & Regional Properties
London & Regional Properties Limited (L&R) is a private real estate and leisure investment firm based in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest privately held principal investors in Europe, performing private equity style investments in direct property and asset-backed operating businesses. L&R was founded in 1987 by Richard Livingstone, a chartered surveyor, and his brother Ian, a former optometrist. The brothers are billionaires and are described by the ''Irish Independent'' as "secretive". The firm has upwards of £9 billion in assets under management. L&R has business interests in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the AmericasLondon & Regional Properties Ltd '' [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the east, Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, and Oxfordshire to the west. The largest settlement is the city of Milton Keynes, and the county town is Aylesbury. The county has an area of and had a population of 840,138 at the 2021 census. ''plus'' Besides Milton Keynes, which is in the north-east, the largest settlements are in the southern half of the county and include Aylesbury, High Wycombe, and Chesham. For Local government in England, local government purposes Buckinghamshire comprises two Unitary authorities of England, unitary authorities, Buckinghamshire Council and Milton Keynes City Council. The Historic counties of England, historic county had slightly different borders, and included the towns of S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
William Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor
William Waldorf Astor II, 3rd Viscount Astor (13 August 1907 – 7 March 1966) was an English businessman and Conservative Party politician. He was also a member of the Astor family. Background and education William was the eldest son of Waldorf Astor and Nancy Witcher Langhorne (by marriage, Viscountess Astor). He was educated at Eton and at New College, Oxford. Political career In 1932, Astor was appointed secretary to Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, at a League of Nations Committee of Enquiry in what was then known as Manchuria. First elected to the House of Commons in 1935, he served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Fulham East until 1945. Between 1936 and 1937 he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Samuel Hoare, who was then made Home Secretary in the new cabinet of Neville Chamberlain in 1937. In World War II, he served as a naval intelligence officer, acquiring no distinction, but gaining many ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was an English architect best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo style architecture, Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.Bisgrove, p. 179 Background and training Born on 23 May 1795Barry p. 4 in Bridge Street, Westminster (opposite the future site of the Big Ben, Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster), he was the fourth son of Walter Edward Barry (died 1805), Stationery, a stationer, and Frances Barry (née Maybank; died 1798). He was Baptism, baptised at St Margaret's, Wes ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture with picturesque aesthetics. The resulting style of architecture was essentially of its own time. "The backward look transforms its object," Siegfried Giedion wrote of historicist architectural styles; "every spectator at every period—at every moment, indeed—inevitably transforms the past according to his own nature." The Italianate style was first developed in Britain in about 1802 by John Nash, with the construction of Cronkhill in Shropshire. This small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which is derived the Italianate architecture of the late Regency and early Victorian eras. The Italianate style was further developed and popularised by the arch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Taplow
Taplow is a village and civil parish in the Unitary Authority of Buckinghamshire, England. It sits on the left bank of the River Thames, facing Maidenhead in the neighbouring county of Berkshire, with Cippenham and Burnham to the east. It is the south-westernmost settlement in Buckinghamshire. The village features a Grade II listed mock-medieval church, the parish church of St Nicholas, as well as a school of the same name. Taplow railway station, on the Great Western Main Line and Elizabeth Line, serves the village, with services to London Paddington, Heathrow, through Central London, Reading and Oxford. There are two conservation areas in the parish, the Taplow Village Conservation Area and the Taplow Riverside Conservation Area. Footpaths connect all parts of the parish to Maidenhead Bridge and to Burnham Beeches, a modest, hilly wood marking the start of the Chiltern Hills. History The village has a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest, South Lodge Pit, datin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Viscounts Astor
Viscount Astor, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1917 for the financier and statesman William Waldorf Astor, 1st Baron Astor. He had already been created Baron Astor, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent, in 1916, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. His eldest son Waldorf, the second Viscount, was the husband of Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. , the titles are held by their grandson, the fourth Viscount, who succeeded his father in 1966. He is one of the ninety-two elected hereditary peers that remain in the House of Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999, and sits as a Conservative. John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever, was the third son of the first Viscount. This peerage, Baron Astor of Hever, was a separate creation in 1956 and not to be confused with the Viscount's subsidiary title of Baron Astor, of Hever Castle in the C ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |