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| Subject: Lydia, Duchess of Bedford, 88, Pioneer in Noble-Tourism | |
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Author: died July 25, 2006 |
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Date Posted: August 21, 2006 4:56:52 EDT In reply to: Dies at 85 's message, "Duke of Bedford, Who Opened His Home to the Public" on October 29, 2002 3:31:16 EDT Lydia, Duchess of Bedford, an English aristocrat who helped transform Woburn Abbey, her second husband’s ancestral home in Bedfordshire, into a pioneering and satisfyingly lucrative example of blueblood tourism, died July 25 in Chertsey, Surrey, England. She was 88. Her death came after she was injured in a fall, said Paul de Fraine, personal assistant to the present duke. After inheriting Woburn Abbey in 1953, with its staggering estate taxes and annual heating bills of $14,000, Ian Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford, a former newspaper reporter and rent collector, decided to make the dilapidated property pay for itself by reinventing it as a tourist attraction. It was not easy; half the building had been demolished because of dry rot. The estate, with more than 10,000 acres of land, had been in the Russell family since 1547, and when the new duke and duchess, who had been farming in South Africa, were called home to do their dynastic duty, they literally rolled up their sleeves and washed antique porcelain dinner services and dusted off the paintings by Canaletto, Landseer and Van Dyck. Six months of cleaning later, Woburn Abbey’s doors were opened to the public in 1954. The entrance fee was a half-crown, about 35 cents; it is now £10.50, about $20. Some of the couple’s noble friends were horrified at additions that they considered shocking intrusions of show business: in addition to snack bars and sailboat rentals, there was a children’s zoo with a skunk named Jasmine. More startling stunts were to come. The property eventually developed a safari park with lions, giraffes and Barbary apes. Marilyn Monroe was invited to sleep in one of the historic beds. However, many members of the nobility tried to follow the example of the duke and duchess when it became clear that the newly enlivened Woburn Abbey was a moneymaker. In the first five months of 1957, according to an article in The New York Times, 373,000 tourists visited the property, paying more than $200,000 toward the upkeep of the estate. The estate is now managed by the duke’s grandson Andrew Russell, 15th Duke of Bedford. Today, it incorporates three award-winning golf courses, an inn, a stud farm, an antiques center and a restaurant housed in a Tudor-style half-timbered building that was displayed at the Paris Exhibition of 1878. Born in 1917 as the Hon. Lydia Yarde-Buller, the duchess was a member of a family whose genealogical tentacles connected her to an array of notables, including Sir Walter Raleigh, Robert E. Lee, Olivia de Havilland and President Benjamin Harrison. Her father, John Yarde-Buller, the third Baron Churston, was a military officer who served in the Boer War. Her mother, Jessie Smither, was one of Edwardian London’s most alluring musical comedy stars, performing under the stage name Denise Orme. Adding further exotic gloss to the Yarde-Buller clan was the duchess’s sister Joan, who married the playboy Prince Aly Khan, converted to Islam and adopted the name Princess Tajuldowlah. The duchess married her first husband, Capt. Ian Archibald de Hoghton Lyle, heir to a baronetcy, in 1938; he was killed in action four years later. She married the Duke of Bedford in 1947, about a year after the suicide of his first wife, when he was still the Marquess of Tavistock. They divorced in 1960 because of the duke’s affair with the French television producer Nicole Milinaire, who became his third and last wife. Lydia, Duchess of Bedford (who kept her title after the divorce, with the customary addition of her first name to avoid confusion with her husband’s new wife) is survived by two sons, Sir Gavin Lyle, third baronet, of Murthly, Perth, Scotland, and Lord Francis Russell of London; a daughter, Lorna Alexander of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland; a stepson, Lord Rudolf Russell, also of London; and nephews and nieces who include Aga Khan IV, the 49th imam of the Shiite Imami Ismaili Muslims, who lives in Paris. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |