{"id":2348,"date":"2024-10-14T09:29:23","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T09:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/stamford\/?p=1198"},"modified":"2024-10-14T09:29:23","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T09:29:23","slug":"christmas-at-burghley-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/highlights\/christmas-at-burghley-house\/10-2024","title":{"rendered":"Christmas at Burghley House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the festive season approaches, we\u2019re reflecting on the success and the appeal of Burghley House\u2019s Christmas Fair, organised in association with the Angel Committee including Lady Victoria Leatham, a previous custodian of the historic property<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\ufeffAs the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness leaves dew on the parkland, and trees coloured in the same golden yellow hues at the stonework of Burghley House, the estate is enjoying a few weeks of relative calm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time of writing this year\u2019s Burghley Horse Trials has concluded with 160,000 people cheering for Lincolnshire rider Ros Canter as she lifted the silver salver. Granted there have still been events like Burghley by Twilight and a performance of Messiah, plus the estate\u2019s Halloween activities to look forward to at the end of October\u2026 not to mention visitors enjoying autumn walks and freeflow visits to the property, but until the end of November at least, Autumn will be a little quieter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, with over 20,000 people expected to visit Burghley House from 28th November to 1st December, the estate will soon be a festive flurry of activity. The estate\u2019s Christmas Fair is run in association with the Angel Committee, providing festive gifts, the estate\u2019s fine food & drink market and Christmas stocking fillers and decorations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Angel Fair was established six years ago as a separate event, but this will be the fourth year it has been based at Burghley House and run as part of Burghley\u2019s own Christmas Fair. One of its biggest fans and someone keen to see its continued success is Lady Victoria Leatham, custodian of the property from 1982-2007 and the daughter of David Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a number of years Victoria has also been a supporter of Sue Ryder, founded in 1953 by its eponymous palliative and bereavement support ambassador. It\u2019s a charity which now has 3,000 staff across the service as well as 6,000 volunteers, care hubs and seven registered hospices including Thorpe Hall near Peterborough with its consultant-led care and 20 inpatient beds, but support is really important in order to meet the huge daily costs necessary to provide care at the place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI visited various people who lived in and around the Burghley Estate there and that\u2019s how, one day, I came to meet Sue herself,\u201d says Lady Victoria. \u201cShe was an amazing woman, I remember her energy and her very bright blue sparkling eyes. She had such enthusiasm that it was impossible not to be swept away by that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut she also had a point. She couldn\u2019t bear to see people dying badly in this country, and as she pointed out, a lack of care or willingness to acknowledge a stage of life that we\u2019ll all come to is simply not the mark of a civilised country, we have to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to do something to contribute. That\u2019s how the Angel Fair came about. I had contacts in retail as I was running a business at the time, so I contacted a few friends who were in retail too, and said how keen I was to support Sue Ryder and their work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey said \u2018of course,\u2019 and then \u2013 bless them \u2013 they all came, and so did hundreds of visitors to the event. The Angel Fair has grown and grown, and then a few years ago Burghley offered us the opportunity to join their event too. Today, we\u2019ve around 150 stallholders, and tens of thousands of visitors, which help to makes the event a success, but also to ensures it has a busy, festive feel, with just the kind of happy energy that Christmas is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just the kind of event that Burghley House and our family enjoy, and just the kind of event that the estate suits. When my father was custodian of the house, it was open, but on very different terms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou could make an appointment with the housekeeper in the 1950s who would show you around but tourism, as such, had not begun at that point. My father was responsible for democratising access to the house, he and my mother too. In the early years my father would be in the dining room at lunchtime on a Sunday and say \u2018my goodness, I\u2019ve just seen half the town walk past.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSoon busloads of visitors would come along and then word got out and it was just regarded as being a great day out, visiting one of England\u2019s most beautiful properties. When we took over the house in 1982 things had changed a great deal, but I remember one comment in the visitor book \u2018the house is interesting, but dusty.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe but when I lived in the house as a young girl, the Horse Trials was based elsewhere. It only came to Burghley House in 1961 after an outbreak of Foot & Mouth at the previous fixture, Harewood. The early days of the trials was a bit more modest with just a few straw bales and people in bowler hats\u2026 much more relaxed!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mother set up the Orangery restaurant and together with my husband Simon, we created the Education Centre, now the visitors\u2019 entrance. Before that you\u2019d just enter the house and walk into what used to be my kitchen, which wasn\u2019t exactly an impressive or ideal start to a tour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSimon did a good deal to persuade the property\u2019s trustees that it was a good idea to spend the money to encourage people to visit, and to provide a proper environment into which they could be welcomed. At first the trustees would put on hard hats when we walked in as they knew we were going to come at them with our plans for the house, but we soon worked together very well and the huge success is evident. The education centre, though, was very much Simon\u2019s baby.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a challenge to balance the need to encourage people to come and visit the house with not selling the soul of the estate. The fact of the matter is, without encouraging some degree of commercialisation, we would have been letting the house down greatly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRevenue from visitors and from events like the Horse Trials is essential if we\u2019re to keep on top of preserving the fabric of the building, but also the collection of art and furniture within it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very necessary to share the property and its contents with visitors, but it\u2019s essential for its upkeep too. The property features some incredible carvings by Grinling Gibbons, frescoes by Antonio Verrio such as the Heaven Room and Hell Staircase, but also paintings from artists like Artemisia Gentileschi and other 17th century Italian Old Master paintings, regarded as being among the finest in private ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone should be able to enjoy those works of art, and the parkland itself, but I can\u2019t think of another property in our area that\u2019s so open to visitors and in such good condition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really am so proud of my daughter Miranda. She\u2019s an amazing person and I\u2019m in awe of her energy. She shares that same understanding that there\u2019s a careful path to walk between keeping the house alive for people whilst preserving its soul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like her daughter Miranda, who has a Masters degree in Arts Policy and Administration, Lady Victoria is an expert in antiques who began her career working for Sotherby\u2019s on Bond Street and was a regular contributor to the BBC\u2019s Antiques Roadshow for 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The couple lived in Northumberland where Victoria ran a knitwear shop with colleagues in Corbridge. Simon was working as an accountant and so later the couple also spent working around the home counties before returning to her childhood home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGrowing up at Burghley felt normal. As a child you don\u2019t question things, you just accept them. But returning to the place, we were reminded of just how wonderful the house is, not just as an historic property but as a family home too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was quite impractical though. The first thing we had to contend with when we moved in was how to keep the rain out. And as you either live on the ground floor or the top floor, you\u2019re always up and down stairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen Simon retired from working in London and as we were getting older, we reasoned that it was time to let Miranda and her family enjoy the property. We moved to a smaller property in Fotheringhay, although it dates back to about 1473 or something, so of course we\u2019ve had to contend with all of the troubles that a very old property brings, but it\u2019s a privilege to be the custodian of an old house, to help it thrive into the next century.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore we left, we created the Sculpture Gardens and Gardens of Surprise, based on the design of a similar property belonging to Lord Burghley in Hertfordshire. As Miranda and her family moved in, we were proud to leave the property in good condition and good health, but we were definitely ready to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lovely place to revisit when we see family though, and we\u2019ve had some wonderful Christmases there. This year I think we\u2019re at home for Christmas Day, with our son and the grandchildren. I really enjoy hosting a good family Christmas with the usual traditions\u2026 the stockings, the bread sauce, panic over the turkey in the kitchen, all the usual things!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChristmas will start for us properly, though, with a visit to the Angel Fair. There\u2019s a lot of planning and a lot of hard work that goes into creating an event that we hope people really enjoy. The festive season is a really important time for families, and we all really hope that we can use the joy of the season to also highlight the work of Sue Ryder Thorpe Hall and ensure it\u2019s as well supported as it deserves to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Angel Fair and Burghley Christmas Fair\u00a0\u00a0take place from Thursday 28th November to Sunday 1st December.\u00a0The event raises funds for the Sue Ryder Thorpe Hall Hospice in Peterborough,\u00a0see www.burghley.co.uk.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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