1800 | Author, Jane Lark's stories

Sophia Dubochet

We spent a great day at Attingham recently, it is an amazing house. In a previous blog I spoke of the scandalous real life story of a young courtesan, Sophia Dubochet and the 2nd Lord Berwick. Sophia being the sister of the infamous kiss and tell writer of the 1800’s Harriette Wilson who was also a courtesan, and probably jealous of her lucky younger sister.

You can understand her jealousy when you see the house and park Sophia managed to obtain as a home through her marriage to Lord Berwick.

Lord Berwick was clearly devoted to Sophia. He was brought up a son of a love match. (His father had also defied advice over his choice of bride and married for love.)

His father built Attingham and it is divided in the fashionable style, with a feminine and masculine side to the house.

The feminine side is very romantically decorated, with beautiful ceiling paintings of scenes of idyllic love, with cupids carrying their bows.

It is no wonder then that when the 2nd Lord Berwick fell in love at forty, with a seventeen year old courtesan, he decided to flout the unwritten rules of society and have her for his wife.

He’d inherited his title at 19, and undertaken the Grand Tour, and probably, as was common in the time, had an ideal poetic image of love, and he must have passed from his 19^th year to his 40^th being able to have everything he wished, with wealth and status to supply it. Hence he deliberately set out to purchase Sophia’s love, buying her numerous gifts.

His lavish spending on her did not stop when they married. Much of the redecoration they undertook survives at Attingham and what has not survived is being replaced so you can see the house in the style they established.

For instance the black and pink curtains Thomas, the 2^nd Lord Berwick, put up in his study.

You can also see one of the gifts Thomas gave Sophia, a gold music box, with a monkey as the conductor and a gold harp.

Sophia collected birds, and spent extravagantly on herself and others. Needless to say they financially ran aground in the end.

In 1827 and 1829 they were forced to hold bankruptcy auctions to pay off debts.

At this point Thomas’s younger brother William came to the rescue and purchased much of the furniture and then leased Attingham.

Thomas and Sophia went to Italy following this, where Thomas died in 1832. Sophia then returned to England and died in Lemington Spa at the age of 81 in 1875.

There are some of Sophia’s dresses and other articles on show at Attingham, her fans and calling-card holders.

It sets my imagination off looking at these things and thinking of someone I have read so much about holding them, wearing them and touching them. Quite, quite, amazing.

To see the Attingham website with internal pictures go to http://beta.nationaltrust.org.uk/attingham-park/

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.

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is that of the 7th Lord Rodney.

Berrington was built in 1775 by Thomas Harley, a banker and Government contractor, and is another beautiful Georgian Neo-classical mansion.

One thing which particularly makes it stand out is the red sandstone it’s built in.

Thomas Harley, with no male heir, made an influential marriage for his daughter into an impoverished aristocratic family, the Rodney’s.

Admiral Rodney was a well known seaman of the era and had achieved some fame during naval battles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Brydges_Rodney,_1st_Baron_Rodney . However his financial affairs were in a poor state, to the point he fled the country in 1775 to avoid debtors. He already had a connection with the banker Thomas Harley and actively encouraged his son using these words in a letter dated September 1780,

‘When you see Mr Harley, who is a very old Acquaintance, remember me to him and, my dear George, if your Heart is touched by either of his daughters, indulge the flame…’

Thomas Harley’s eldest daughter and heir Anne, and Admiral Rodney’s son George were married in April 1781 and thus the Rodney line at Berrington Hall commenced.

The 7th Lord Rodney was the end of that line however.

There are numerous stories descending from the 7th Lord Rodney if you take the house tour. He was definitely a real life rake and profligate, he lost all his money to gambling mostly on the turf – horse racing – and ravaged poor Berrington house.

A butler found him one day with a crowbar trying to remove a fireplace.

He sold everything it was possible to sell and when the library’s books were all sold, he made it into a billiard room. This was then the only room which survived with fixtures and fittings intact.

My guess would be he did not like to strip it, when he would need to convince guests he might be playing with that he had enough money left to pay any gambling debts he might incur in the game if he lost.

Of course his hope would be he would not lose.

He lost the house in its entirety in 1901, and his wife through divorce the following year.

The house then passed on to another family who had made their fortune through trade, the Cawleys.

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.