Christmas at Burghley House
As the festive season approaches, we’re reflecting on the success and the appeal of Burghley House’s Christmas Fair, organised in association with the Angel Committee including Lady Victoria Leatham, a previous custodian of the historic property
As 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.
At the time of writing this year’s 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’s Halloween activities to look forward to at the end of October… 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.
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’s Christmas Fair is run in association with the Angel Committee, providing festive gifts, the estate’s fine food & drink market and Christmas stocking fillers and decorations.
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’s 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.
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’s 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.
“I visited various people who lived in and around the Burghley Estate there and that’s how, one day, I came to meet Sue herself,” says Lady Victoria. “She 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.”
“But she also had a point. She couldn’t 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’ll all come to is simply not the mark of a civilised country, we have to do better.”
“I wanted to do something to contribute. That’s 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.”
“They said ‘of course,’ and then – bless them – 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’ve 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.”
“It’s 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.”
“You 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 ‘my goodness, I’ve just seen half the town walk past.’”
“Soon 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’s 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 ‘the house is interesting, but dusty.’”
“It’s 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… much more relaxed!”
“My mother set up the Orangery restaurant and together with my husband Simon, we created the Education Centre, now the visitors’ entrance. Before that you’d just enter the house and walk into what used to be my kitchen, which wasn’t exactly an impressive or ideal start to a tour.”
“Simon did a good deal to persuade the property’s 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’s baby.”
“It’s 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.”
“Revenue from visitors and from events like the Horse Trials is essential if we’re to keep on top of preserving the fabric of the building, but also the collection of art and furniture within it.”
“It’s very necessary to share the property and its contents with visitors, but it’s 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.”
“Everyone should be able to enjoy those works of art, and the parkland itself, but I can’t think of another property in our area that’s so open to visitors and in such good condition.”
“I really am so proud of my daughter Miranda. She’s an amazing person and I’m in awe of her energy. She shares that same understanding that there’s a careful path to walk between keeping the house alive for people whilst preserving its soul.”
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’s on Bond Street and was a regular contributor to the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow for 20 years.
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.
“Growing up at Burghley felt normal. As a child you don’t 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.”
“It 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’re always up and down stairs.”
“When 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’ve had to contend with all of the troubles that a very old property brings, but it’s a privilege to be the custodian of an old house, to help it thrive into the next century.”
“Before 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.”
“It’s a lovely place to revisit when we see family though, and we’ve had some wonderful Christmases there. This year I think we’re at home for Christmas Day, with our son and the grandchildren. I really enjoy hosting a good family Christmas with the usual traditions… the stockings, the bread sauce, panic over the turkey in the kitchen, all the usual things!”
“Christmas will start for us properly, though, with a visit to the Angel Fair. There’s 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’s as well supported as it deserves to be.”
The Angel Fair and Burghley Christmas Fair take place from Thursday 28th November to Sunday 1st December. The event raises funds for the Sue Ryder Thorpe Hall Hospice in Peterborough, see www.burghley.co.uk.