I
have always thought of myself as a Northerner because I was born and bred in
Yorkshire but in truth my birthplace is a stone’s throw away from the
Nottinghamshire border and only a mile or two of fields saved me from the fate
of being a Midlander. As far as I am aware, I have no blood relatives or
ancestors buried in any London cemetery; however I do have a personal
connection to an easily overlooked vault close to the Anglican Chapel in Kensal
Green. This vault, with its massive granite capstone, houses the mortal remains
of William John Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, the Marquess of Titchford and, from
1854, the 5th Duke of Portland. The duke is famous for being somewhat eccentric
and for the unusual nature of his additions to the ancestral home at Welbeck
Abbey in Nottinghamshire. My tenuous connection with the duke is that my
great-grandfather cleaned the chimneys at Welbeck Abbey and my grandmother
worked in the kitchens; I am descended from the serfs on the estate.
The
Dukeries, the area of North Nottinghamshire where the estates of the Dukes of
Newcastle, Norfolk, Kingston and Portland are to be found, is just 10 miles
from where I grew up. I heard stories of Welbeck Abbey, its eccentric Duke and
of the tunnels and underground rooms he built beneath the main house from my
father. Whilst he was, to all appearances, a sober man and certainly not one
given to flights of fancy, I eventually came to realise that my father was a
mine of disinformation. Whilst often containing a kernel of the truth his
stories were prone to exaggeration; on trips to Clumber Park, once the estate
of the Dukes of Newcastle, my father told me that the main house had been sold
by an impoverished Duke before the war and then carefully demolished, all the
bricks and building stones meticulously numbered and then packed and shipped
off, along with all its furniture and artworks, to America where the mansion
had been rebuilt for a millionaire, lovingly recreated exactly as it was, down
to the carpets and curtains, the dinner service and the books in the library,
in sunny California. It was true that
the house had been demolished in 1938 but the rest turned out to be total
bullshit. As a child I loved my dad’s
stories about Clumber Park and neighbouring Welbeck Abbey; he told us that the
Duke of Portland had built an underground home beneath the mansion, with a
subterranean library, stables and a tunnel from the house to Worksop Station
that was big enough to take a horse and carriage. The greatest wonder of the
underground house he said, was a ballroom with a glass ceiling that had been
built beneath the ornamental lake and where, if you looked up, you could see
the carp swimming in the clear green waters above your head. It was only later
that I learned to be sceptical about the details in these accounts. My
grandmother later confirmed that she had worked for a while in the kitchens at
Welbeck but the only detail I can remember her telling me is a story about
accidentally shutting the oven door on a kitchen cat that had been napping
inside, and the unholy noise it made when she lit the fire beneath the oven. I
would love to be able to quiz her now about every last detail she remembers of
the place (and everything else from her life) but she died in 1985.
The
Duke of Portland expired at his town mansion, Harcourt House, 19,
Cavendish-square, at half -past five on Saturday morning, after an illness of
but brief duration. The health of the Duke had, indeed, for some time past been
a cause of anxiety to his friends, owing to his advanced age, but it was not
until the early part of the past week that his illness assumed such a serious
aspect as to alarm his family, and on Friday he was seen to be sinking fast.
During the night he got worse, and before day dawn on Saturday morning he had
breathed his last.
London
Evening Standard - Monday 08 December 1879
William
John Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck was born in London 1800 and baptised at St
George’s in Hanover Square. From childhood he was always rather dreamy and
delicate and his parents took the decision to educate him at home rather than
subject him to the rough and tumble of Westminster School, his father’s alma
mater. Despite this he had a five year army career from the age of 18 though he
did move regiment rather regularly, starting off in the Foot Guards before
moving to the Light Dragoons and finishing off as a captain in the Life Guards.
He saw no active service and suffered from ‘lethargy’ caused by his delicate
health throughout his short career. In 1824 he changed regiments once again,
moving to the Royal West India Rangers as a Captain; an unusual move since the
regiment had been disbanded five years earlier. He happily stayed on in the non-existent
army unit for another 10 years, drawing half pay and not having to be bothered
with any tiresome duties. His family encouraged him to go into politics and he
was duly elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Kings Lynn in 1824,
a position he promptly resigned from two years later on the grounds of ill
health. To escape further family attempts to find him a useful career he fled
to the continent until he his father died in 1854 and he became the 5th Duke of
Portland. His position finally allowed the
highly introverted middle-aged man to become what he had probably wanted to be
all along – a recluse.
The Sheffield
Daily Telegraph of Tuesday 09 December 1879 carried a rather good obituary of
the 5th Duke. The version below is abridged!:
THE
LATE DUKE OF PORTLAND. The "Recluse of Welbeck" is dead. He will be
missed, but not by many; for not many saw or had intercourse with him; but by
those who do miss him, he will be missed greatly. There was, perhaps, no man of
whom so little was known and so much was said, as his Grace the Duke of
Portland. The art of minding one's own business and not caring about the
business of anyone else, was by him cultivated keenly, and brought to
perfection. He was in the world, but not of it, in the ordinary sense of that
term, and popular imagination had surrounded him with a brilliant nimbus of romance.
And yet he was intensely practical and matter-of-fact. In all he did—and he did
much—there was a method, as sane as that of the philosophic Dane. The Most
Noble William John Cavendish Scott Bentinck, fifth Duke Portland, in the county
of Dorset, of Titchfield, in the county of Southampton, Earl of Portland,
Viscount Woodstock, of Woodstock, in the county of Oxon, Baron of Cirencester,
in the county of Gloucester, one of the co heirs of the ancient Barony of Ogle,
and a family trustee of the British Museum, was born in London on the 18th of September,
1800. He the second and last surviving son of William Henry Cavendish, fourth
duke, by Henrietta, eldest daughter and coheiress with her sister, Viscountess Canning,
of the late General John Scott, of Balcomie, in the county of Fife.
Every
year since the Duke Portland inherited his estate, he has spent a princely
fortune in carrying out alterations in building and in pulling down again. For
cost the Duke’s building achievements are without precedent in the history of
the country. Welbeck Abbey is at the present day a wonderful place, and has no
equal. There are passages underground for miles, buildings under the sods of
magnificent proportions, and a ball-room that surpasses the hall of the cutlers
in dimensions and puts the Albert Hall to the blush. The most striking feature
of the Abbey is the large Gothic Hall, which was restored by the Countess of
Oxford in 1751. The fan like tracery of the calling, the elaborate designs, and
the splendid decorations are a feast to the eyes. All the rooms are furnished with princely
luxuriance, and they are very numerous. Like the famous Worcester, the Duke of
Portland was of an inventive turn of mind. He believed in labour-saving
contrivances, and wherever he could he applied them. The necessity for waiters
was minimised even in his great dining room. An hydraulic shaft connected the
dining room with the kitchen, and by means of it a small waggon was lowered to
the underground passages. The rails upon which the waggons run—like miniature
tram rails—terminated in a cupboard, and in this cupboard, which was also a
stove, food could be kept hot till needed for the table. The hundreds of
valuable and high-class pictures hung in the various rooms showed his Grace's
mind was highly cultivated and artistic. Indeed, the earlier part of his life
was devoted to the cultivation of art.
 |
| The underground picture gallery |
But
the outside of the abbey, the grounds, the "works" as they are
called, are the most striking proofs of the strangeness of the Duke’s ways, and
thoughts, and doings. The grounds seem to be literally undermined. Extending in
all directions from the abbey are burrows or passages. There are burrows to the
right of the abbey, burrows to the left, burrows to the north, and burrows to
the south, burrows to the east, and burrows to the west. Not mere borings or excavations, but lofty,
spacious passages, brilliantly lighted by costly apparatus for letting in
sun-light, and where sun-light cannot be admitted, by lights from gas. By an
underground passage we come to the celebrated riding school, the like of which
is not to be found in Europe, or in the world. It is entered by a trap door,
opened by means of a curiously-designed crank in the passage. In the days of
the Duke of Newcastle it was used as a riding school, now it is magnificent
museum of art over I50 feet in length. Hundreds of pictures are arranged— not
hung—round the gallery, and piled in stacks on the floor are thousands of
volumes of books, some modern, and many old, rare, and valuable. The floor of
this gallery is of oak, and the ceiling is made to represent brilliant
midsummer sky. Mirrors in profusion are placed about, and light is shed from
four chandeliers suspended from the roof, and each weighing a ton. This
apartment is lighted by over two thousand gas lights, and when all are
illuminated the effect must be brilliant. There are many miles of passages
under the grounds. One extends from the Abbey half the way to Worksop; another
was only used by the Duke, and the stranger found in it was deemed guilty of an
offence approaching high treason. The passages are all broad enough for three
people to walk abreast in them, and pleasant to walk in. The library, like the
picture gallery, is underground, and is the work of many years. It is divided
into five large rooms, and so arranged as to form, when desirable, one very
large room. This library is 238 feet long. Another immense and
superbly-constructed room has been erected underground. At one end it is
approached by spiral staircase, and the other by subterranean passages. Church
or ball-room? It would do admirably for both. Some say it is intended for the
first and some say for the second. It was begun five years ago, and left in an
incomplete state. There are many of these rooms at Welbeck. They are free from
draughts, admirably lighted, magnificently decorated, and all very costly.
Comparatively few outbuildings are to be seen at this home of errate fancy. The
most remarkable of those which can be seen is undoubtedly the new riding
school, a building of gigantic proportions and of extraordinary beauty. The
walls are of solid stone and the roof of wood, iron, and glass is nearly four
hundred feet in length and one hundred feet wide, and divided into a great
centre and two isles. The central department is decorated with frieze painted
brass work representing birds, beasts, and foliage, and of perfect workmanship
and elegant design. It is fifty feet high, and lighted by 8000 gas jets. Here
the Duke took pleasure in seeing his horses exercised.
 |
| The kilometre-long plant corridor which runs between the main house and the riding school |
The
"works" are marvels. He employed constantly upon them over 2.000
workmen. In fact, Welbeck was like an industrial village. There were wood
yards, machine shops, factories, end even gas works, all within the grounds. He
was ever building and pulling down again. A writer in ‘the World’ a year ago
said of him that he had refined taste and skill in architecture. The Duke of
Portland was a builder-up of good work and a puller-down of bad. There are many
stories of his impatience of ugliness, and tenderness to its authors. An
architect at one time employed by him built a gateway, which when completed
became abhorrent to him; yet so considerate was he of the artist's feelings
that he could not find it in his heart to remonstrate with him. So be tried
another way. One night he waited till the architect had driven off it his
dogcart, and then set all his men to work at overtime and double pay to pull
down the hated edifice. By morning not a vestige remained, and the architect on
his arrival rubbed his eyes in amazement; and neither he nor the Duke ever took
the slightest notice of its disappearance. There was, too, a memorial bridge
erected in the memory of Lord George Bentinck, near the spot where he breathed
his last, close to the wood and opposite village of Norton. Short work was made
of this bridge, as of numerous other odds and ends of architecture on the
domain, and the present reign of perfection was inaugurated.
 |
| The Illustrated London News from 1881 |
The
late Duke was always what the world calls eccentric He visited not at all, and
encouraged no visitors. He hated ceremony and the penalty of dismissal was said
to be the result of a workman lifting his hat or specially noticing him as he
walked about the grounds. A man who wanted work always obtain it at the
Dukeries, but his Grace had a contempt for idlers. It was said that if he found
a man ‘dawdling’, that man was sent instantly about his business. He was what
people call a "good friend and a bitter enemy." He never forgave an
affront, and could wait for years to repay it as some of the workpeople found
to their cost. He detested "limbered tongue" people, if he found that
any of the workpeople had been revealing secrets to the world he would dispense
with their services. The Duke was enormously wealthy. It was currently stated
that he had coming "a thousand pounds per day and two for Sunday."
According to a contemporary his rent roil was something like £400,000 per
annum. He had estates in Middlesex, Ayrshire, Northumberland, Derbyshire,
Norfolk, and Lincolnshire.
There
was no peace for the Duke even after his death – in 1897 began the long running
Druce case when Anna Maria Druce claimed that his grace had lived a double life,
pretending to be her father-in-law, Thomas Charles Druce a successful London
upholsterer. Druce had been buried at Highgate in 1864. As the 5th Duke had
never married and had no children the Druce case was essentially that Anna
Maria’s husband was the rightful heir and the Druces should inherit the entire
Portland estate. The case was only settled in 1907 when Druce’s body was
exhumed at Highgate see here for the full story.
