Scandalous Innocent (25 page)
HOW CLOSE IS THE HAM HOUSE OF TODAY TO THE HAM HOUSE SEEN IN
Scandalous Innocent
?
I
made several visits to Ham House, first to get the general feel of the place, and then to fill in some details I knew I could use—such as the routes my characters would have taken, which way the hall doors opened, and where exactly was the fountain in the little orchard. Visits also gave me a more accurate sense of scale than photographs did, and I found that the great hall with the chequered floor was not as large as it appears in the guidebook.
But inevitably there are differences that one must accept—like the room now used for displaying artefacts, the upper storey and some of the second-floor rooms closed to visitors, the servants’ access passage that is hidden until one asks the reason for those doors in the wallpaper, and the old kitchen garden and orangery, which have changed beyond recognition. Here, one must impose a fertile imagination on what
is
there and what
was
there. To their credit, the National Trust has tried to recreate the interior as closely as possible, using some of the seventeenth-century furniture that could have been used by Phoebe and Leo, but not the billiard table, and sourcing similar items on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. And although the house looks massive from the outside, on the inside it is really quite compact. One particular bonus was the painting by Thomas Rowlandson that appeared in an earlier Ham House guidebook, showing our dear sixth Earl of Dysart with his missus at a garden party for the workers. That was a piece of history I had to include—though the space they used has changed over the years, as has the other side of the house where the great Wilderness was. Thankfully, the River Thames is still there, although I believe even that has changed shape a little in four hundred years.
GHOSTS AT HAM
H
am House is reputed to be one of the National Trust’s most haunted properties. A paranormal investigation by the Ghost Club reckons that, in total, there are around fifteen ghosts in residence, with a large proportion being canine. In the second part of
Scandalous Innocent,
Phoebe experiences echoes from the past—echoes which still appear today, particularly concerning Elizabeth, Duchess of Lauderdale (1626-1698).
The Duchess’s ghost is supposed to roam the house still. Disquieted by the death of her second husband, John Maitland (first Duke of Lauderdale) in 1682, who had fallen out of favour at court, she tried to sue his brother for her husband’s funeral expenses. The case lasted ten years and, as costs mounted, Elizabeth became penniless and gout-ridden, and was forced to sell much of her valued collection from the house. She died in 1698, after having written: “I am a prisoner in my beloved Ham House, and I will never leave…”
Footsteps and a rose scent often appear in her ground-floor Bedchamber, pets refuse to enter, and visitors often remark on being rather terrified by her portrait, hanging over the fireplace. In the nearby Dining Room, wafts of tobacco can be often smelt. It was Elizabeth’s husband, the first Duke, who enjoyed smoking Virginia tobacco.
Footsteps have been heard overnight, and occasionally footprints are found on the stairs and in the Bedchamber, which appear to have lifted the varnish from the floorboards. At times, a lady clothed in a long black dress is spotted going downstairs and into the Chapel. After her husband’s death, the Duchess of Lauderdale is known to have spent much of the week preceding his funeral in the Chapel, praying alongside his coffin. During conservation cleaning one morning, a handprint was found among the dust on the rail of the Duchess’s pew. The Chapel had been closed and alarmed since the previous clean.
Indeed, Sir Horace Walpole (1717-1797) commented:
“Every minute I expected to see ghosts sweeping by; ghosts I would not give sixpence to see, Lauderdales, Tallemaches (sic) and Maitlands…”
Many other ghosts too numerous to mention also frequent Ham House and other National Trust properties.
(Based on a chapter from:
Ghosts: Mysterious Tales from the National Trust
by Sian Evans, National Trust Books 2006)
FILMS AT HAM
Being close to London has made Ham ideal for being used as a filming location. While TV and film make up much of Ham’s film credits, it is also frequently used for fashion shoots, TV commercials and comedy shows. Recent projects are:
44 Inch Chest (2009)
John Hurt, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane
Brideshead Revisited (2007)
Emma Thompson, Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw
Never Let Me Go (2009/10)
Keira Knightley, Charlotte Rampling,
Sally Hawkins
Spiceworld the Movie (1997)
Spice Girls, Richard E Grant
The Young Victoria (2009)
Rupert Friend, Miranda Richardson, Mark Strong, Emily Blunt
Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2006) BBC
Jane Horrocks, Janet McTeer
Ballet Shoes (2007) BBC
Victoria Wood, Emma Watson
Little Dorritt (2008) BBC
Andy Serkis, Matthew Macfadyen
Sense and Sensibility (2007) BBC
David Morrissey, Claire Skinne
r
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0584-0
SCANDALOUS INNOCENT
Copyright (c) 2010 by Juliet Landon
First North American Publication 2011
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