I look forward to seeing my family’s Champion de Crespigny portraits at Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire when we visit England next month.
Kelmarsh Hall and its 3,000 acre estate was bought in 1902 by George Granville Lancaster (1853-1907) and Cicely Lancaster née Champion de Crespigny (1874-1946).
Cicely was the second child and oldest daughter of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny (1847-1935) and his wife Georgiana (1849-1935). She married George Lancaster on 19 March 1896 at Maldon, Essex, where the de Crespigny family lived at Champion Lodge.
George and Cicely Lancaster had two children: Valencia (1898 – 1996) and Claude (1899 – 1977). (I wrote about Valencia in last year’s A to Z challenge.)
Claude Lancaster inherited Kelmarsh when he turned 25. Not long afterwards, the Hall was leased, a ten year repairing lease, to Ronald Tree and his wife Nancy Tree nee Perkins formerly Field. Ronald Tree was a journalist and investor and later a politician. The Trees redecorated Kelmarsh. Nancy later become well known for helping to create the English Country House look.
When the Trees purchased a different house in 1933, Claude Lancaster moved back to Kelmarsh Hall, where he became an enthusiastic gardener. In 1948 he married the then-divorced Nancy Tree. Five years later, in 1953, the Lancasters were divorced. Despite the short marriage Nancy is best known by her third married surname, Lancaster.
At present times, Kelmarsh Hall is renowned for its gardens and for the interior decoration of Nancy Lancaster.
Claude Lancaster’s grandfather, Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny the fourth baronet, died in 1935. The title passed to one of his sons, Claude Raul Champion de Crespigny (1878-1941). When Raul died in 1941 the title passed to Raul’s cousins. None of the baronets had sons and the title was passed on three more times in the 1940s. The title became extinct in 1952 with the death of the eighth baronet.
At some stage, presumably in the 1940s, Kelmarsh Hall became the repository for a number of Champion de Crespigny portraits and family documents. The contents of Champion Lodge, including the pictures, were sold in January 1947 after the death of the sixth baronet, Henry Champion de Crespigny (1882 – 1946).
The pictures in the sale are not specified. Perhaps Claude Lancaster bought the family pictures at the auction; perhaps Raul or Henry had given the pictures to Claude Lancaster to be hung at Kelmarsh Hall. After Champion Lodge was sold, Kelmarsh Hall was the only home in the family that would be large enough to hang the pictures.
Claude died in 1977. On his death his sister Valencia inherited Kelmarsh. Claude and Valencia established an independent charitable trust dedicated to preserving the Hall and the landscape around their childhood home as a traditional agricultural estate with the pastoral lifestyle of the countryside.
For a number of years many images from the Kelmarsh collection have been able to viewed online through artuk.org. At present there are 88 works that can be viewed through that website.
I am pleased to be able to see images of my forebears on the Internet, but I look forward to seeing the originals of the portraits and paintings at Kelmarsh Hall.
Related posts
Sources
- Kelmarsh Hall and Gardens website
- Lecture by Martin Wood on Nancy Lancaster: English Country House Style https://youtu.be/AN7PJA4aq_g
cassmob said:
It will be an enormous thrill to see portraits of your ancestors just hanging on a wall. With “ordinary” ancestors (who I love and am proud of), I can’t quite wrap my head around being able to do that.
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cassmob said:
How amazing to be able to see portraits of your ancestors and not just on the Internet. I remember how thrilled I was to see a photo of my 2xgreat grandfather.
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lindamaycurry said:
I am intrigued by Nancy Tree marrying Claude after her divorce. Did she marry for the house? Maybe her love for the house wasn’t strong enough to keep her marriage to Claude going. I love the photo of the children. Valencia looks strong. Claude not so much. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be there.
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Anne Young said:
I believe Nancy said Kelmarsh was her favourite house so her marriage motives might be suspect. Wikipedia says “The couple had been having an affair for years prior to their marriage. Nancy Lancaster later claimed that it was the suffocating, day-to-day intimacy caused by their marriage that made her realise why they were successful as lovers and ill-suited as husband and wife.”
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Duncan David said:
I came across a portrait of a long-lost cousin last year and was enthralled with how much he looked just like me!
https://seal-of-melchizedek.blogspot.com/2019/04/provo-city-centre-temple.html
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Carrie-Anne said:
It’s awesome to have portraits of ancestors, not just photographs! I recently found out I’m related to the Cromwells, so there are paintings of some of my direct ancestors in museums. There’s also a painting of a three-greats-grandpap in his Prussian military uniform, holding a sword.
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Jane said:
I’m a volunteer at Kelmarsh Hall. I was just looking at your family history journal and realise that you are coming over next month? How exciting for everyone! Have you visited Kelmarsh before? I am doing some work on family trees for the families who have lived at Kelmarsh Hall and would love to have something displayed in the future. I’m sure visitors would like to know more about the families. Something that is intriguing the volunteers who are doing research on various aspects of the Hall, are the Imari Jars that are in the Chinese Room. We have been trying to find out who was given these jars, it has been said that they were given to Mary Champion de Crespigny, (Mary Tyrrell), do you know anything about them?
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Anne Young said:
Hi Jane. I haven’t been to Kelmarsh but my parents have when Valencia was alive.
The most knowledgeable person is of course Stephen.
We look forward to visiting Kelmarsh on Tuesday 21 May.
I wrote last year about Valencia at https://ayfamilyhistory.com/2018/04/25/v-is-for-valencia/
My father has written more comprehensively about the Champion de Crespigny Family with a link at https://ayfamilyhistory.com/champions-from-normandy/
Regards
Anne
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