Oh my good lord, it's raining. A rare, sweet pleasure
Eleanor Doughty
@brushingboots.bsky.social
Writer on the aristocracy, big houses, old money; author of HEIRS AND GRACES, a history of the modern aristocracy, which is out now! Views my own, yours for £. edoughty92@gmail.com https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305/heirs-and-graces-by-doughty-eleanor/
This week's Great Estates is on Revesby, Lincolnshire where I learnt how to herd deer, went stoat spotting and almost fell into the reservoir! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/2d2198f...
‘We’ve always treated our 6,000-acre estate like an elderly relative that needs looking after’
Great Estates: village charm and bustling business keep Revesby relevant in the 21st century
telegraph.co.uk
📅 #onthisday 3 Aug 1945 Manny Shinwell became Minister of Fuel and Power. Soon after, open-cast mining transformed the grounds of #WentworthWoodhouse . @brushingboots.bsky.social reveals the clash between government need and aristocratic estates. 🎧 Listen : pod.fo/e/3a194b #History #Podcast #otd
This week's Great Estates is on Revesby, Lincolnshire where I learnt how to herd deer, went stoat spotting and almost fell into the reservoir! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/2d2198f...
‘We’ve always treated our 6,000-acre estate like an elderly relative that needs looking after’
Great Estates: village charm and bustling business keep Revesby relevant in the 21st century
telegraph.co.uk
This week I have been doing a lot of specifically Not Writing work so am desperate to actually use my brain and Write Something, yet here is a 101-minute tape that I have to transcribe first and OH the indignity!!!
People say that stuff is iconic and it almost never is but perhaps the Crooked House in Lavenham actually is. A very civilised Monday morning indeed
On the Other Place MrMemory (who isn't on here?) points out that Hilary Benn leaving government means that Andy Burnham will be the first Labour PM who has not, so far, had a Benn in his cabinet. Of course, there's still time, given that Lord Stansgate remains in the Lords, ironically
Andy Burnham definitely going back to the 1970s by appointing a man called Healey as chancellor
Ach, really sad news with which to start the week. RIP. --> BBC broadcaster Edward Stourton dies aged 68 www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...
BBC broadcaster Edward Stourton dies aged 68
Corporation pays tribute to ‘outstanding’ journalist who presented shows including Today and One O’Clock News
theguardian.com
This week's Great Estates is on the outrageously beautiful Broughton Castle where I had a gorgeous day with Lord Saye and Sele – or rather, Martin Fiennes as he prefers to be known. On new money, old money and why (just) being posh doesn't cut it in the big house www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/3a00d20...
‘Being posh doesn’t pay the bills. Castles need passion, commitment and money’
Great Estates: Broughton Castle has survived war and tragedy but heritage alone won’t secure its future
telegraph.co.uk
Slightly inevitably I wrote about George Cottrell, Nigel Farage and the aristocracy for the Spectator spectator.com/article/the-...
The aristocracy is still very good at producing black sheep
Wouldn’t you be a bit odd if you were from a family that lived in a massive house and had endured generations of being waited on?
spectator.com
Huh, so David Ross has a peerage at last I see. He's changed his tune. This here from my 2021 interview with him where he was brusque, if not rude – and his PR told me not to mention the fact that we were meeting behind a big black door with '10' on the front www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/...
!["There is an EdStone in my garden." The original? "You'd have to go and look at it," he says. Where does the motivation for political donation come from? "Political donations are not philanthropic in [the same] sense." There is a pause while he taps a paperclip on the table. Would he like a peerage? "No."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:5swvxq3ulfwg3wbdedloxrsh/bafkreifc4gzmp4rf3diyb6otiwqwz7oof2ma2jutvixkrfkz6eu56vbkcm)
The thing about Kemi Badenoch's purge of any Conservative member to the left of Enoch Powell is that she's so close to a Tory revival if she only realised it. All she needs to do is to lead a party that is not obviously mad and wait for Reform to crumble, but she can't even manage that
I am too tired and weary to fully articulate what a dumb own goal this is, truly. Not for the first time, I miss Cameron
Tim Bale@timbale.bsky.social · 3w agoMadness. Utter madness. Badenoch is quietly turning what used to be a broad church into an even narrower sect.
Slightly inevitably I wrote about George Cottrell, Nigel Farage and the aristocracy for the Spectator spectator.com/article/the-...
The aristocracy is still very good at producing black sheep
Wouldn’t you be a bit odd if you were from a family that lived in a massive house and had endured generations of being waited on?
spectator.com
This was a really moving interview. We're enormously proud of Peter at Queen Mary. He's been a lone voice for a particular kind of virtue in public life: not as something we admire in ourselves, but as something we practice towards others - and especially our opponents. And he really embodies that.
Rory Cellan-Jones @rorycj.bsky.social · 3w agoWhat a moving interview on R4 BH with Peter Hennessey - says he’s retiring because his Parkinson’s means he can longer think clearly, but he sounded far clearer and made more sense than most people you hear on the radio
One of my favourite things is when I accidentally put Classic FM on and it happens to be playing music I know backwards from orchestra and it just happened now, with Vaughan Williams’ Folk Song Suite while I am walking in the cover crops with my dogs, and nothing has ever felt more appropriate
Journalists who use LLMs to do the actual writing should not be in journalism. What's the point? Quit and let someone who likes writing do it
Emma Grae@emmagraeauthor.bsky.social · 4w agoMarie Claire actually left a prompt from an AI in one of their recent articles. While there’s still some great journalists and publications left, this is utterly shocking. No wonder I’m trying to pivot.
This week's Great Estates is a biiiiig one: it's Badminton and my third duke of 2026, the Duke of Beaufort. I've been trying to get him to give me an interview since 2018 and it's finally happened! It was a pleasure and yet again I must say how much I love my job www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/35a37eb...
‘We own 50,000 acres, but every great estate has to do things to keep the roof on’
Great Estates: Home of the horse trials, Badminton is opening up to new ways of generating business
telegraph.co.uk
This week's Great Estates is a biiiiig one: it's Badminton and my third duke of 2026, the Duke of Beaufort. I've been trying to get him to give me an interview since 2018 and it's finally happened! It was a pleasure and yet again I must say how much I love my job www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/35a37eb...
‘We own 50,000 acres, but every great estate has to do things to keep the roof on’
Great Estates: Home of the horse trials, Badminton is opening up to new ways of generating business
telegraph.co.uk
It was SO lovely to be mentioned on last week's @countrylifemag.bsky.social highlights pod! 'When it comes to knowing what there is to know about the British aristocracy, there is no one better working in the business than Eleanor Doughty' My ep from March here! www.countrylife.co.uk/podcast/the-...
The secret lives of the British aristocracy, with Eleanor Doughty
Eleanor Doughty has spent years getting to know the aristocracy of Britain — and she joins us on the Country Life Podcast to talk about their lives.
countrylife.co.uk
Today I did a speech and gave out prizes at my old school’s prize giving and it was so emotional and nice and bizarre. Feel ancient but so touched to have been asked, and wrote about it a bit here www.instagram.com/p/DaDjTnrtNl...
Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you're into with the people who get you.
instagram.com
This week’s Great Estates is on a house that for centuries was kept so private that when it was listed, inspectors had to do it from the road as Lord Sandys wouldn’t let them in. It’s Ombersley and it’s for sale! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/1308383...
‘I’ve spent almost a decade renovating my 300-year-old country house’
Great Estates: Grade I-listed Ombersley is on the market for £13.5m
telegraph.co.uk
This week’s Great Estates is on a house that for centuries was kept so private that when it was listed, inspectors had to do it from the road as Lord Sandys wouldn’t let them in. It’s Ombersley and it’s for sale! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/1308383...
‘I’ve spent almost a decade renovating my 300-year-old country house’
Great Estates: Grade I-listed Ombersley is on the market for £13.5m
telegraph.co.uk
There’s truly nothing (so pleasing?) like using your own book as the main source of prep for an interview
Is the aristocracy dead like Daphne Guinness suggests? Not on your nelly! But perhaps we’re calling them the wrong thing… by me in today’s Telegraph, ft a good amount of eye-rolling from peers and Lord Balfour's defence of hedgies buying up in the Cotswolds www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/e89fdd9...
The decline and fall of the British aristocracy
The final hereditary peers have gone and billionaires are buying up our stately homes and historic estates. What do the nobility do now?
telegraph.co.uk
Is the aristocracy dead like Daphne Guinness suggests? Not on your nelly! But perhaps we’re calling them the wrong thing… by me in today’s Telegraph, ft a good amount of eye-rolling from peers and Lord Balfour's defence of hedgies buying up in the Cotswolds www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/e89fdd9...
The decline and fall of the British aristocracy
The final hereditary peers have gone and billionaires are buying up our stately homes and historic estates. What do the nobility do now?
telegraph.co.uk
Had an absolutely excellent time last night at an utterly gorgeous dinner to celebrate the paperback of my book Heirs and Graces being published but I can't get away from the fact that I did my liquid eyeliner freehand on the circle line standing up en route and it was the best I've ever done it!!
It’s…. paperback day!!! HEIRS AND GRACES is now available to buy in all forms including with this absolutely gorgeous cover by the magic team at Hutchinson c/o Slim Aarons’ 1960s mastery ⭐️ www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
'I went to Eton and Oxford, so to say that I’m not part of the establishment is ridiculous!' For this week's Great Estates I went to Wales to interview Sir Charlie Gladstone at Hawarden – and see the Grand Old Man's desk – and it was very good fun! 10/10 day out www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/163c5a5...
‘People in my position who swan about doing nothing are neglecting their duty to society’
Great Estates: Sir Charles Gladstone turned a debt-ridden inheritance into a desirable place to live
telegraph.co.uk