An invitation to Knebworth House has never been a trivial affair. Other guests include the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Queen and Oasis, whose sold-out concerts in the 70s, 80s and 90s saw the venue immortalized as the stately home of rock’n’roll.
Even so, there were strict rules for overnight stays. “No matter who you shared the bed with, you had to leave your room at 10 a.m., because that’s when the velvet rope was put back in place and the paying public could enter,” recalls a regular visitor.
“If you were late, you could put everything under the bed and come back later. »
This was a rare concession on the part of the Chatelaine of Knebworth, Lady Cobbold, to those who did not want to break off their romantic relationships until the last possible moment.
For she had to manage the precarious task of keeping the house afloat with a keen eye on the bottom line, even if it seemed at odds with her fairy-tale, hippie beauty and otherworldly air.
For decades, Chryssie Lytton Cobbold, who has died aged 83, and her late husband David, the 2nd Lord Cobbold, kept the family seat and its 250 acres of parkland afloat with a mixture of flamboyance, optimism and rock’n’roll.
Lady Cobbold, pictured in 1995, once delicately described her marriage to David, the 2nd Lord Cobbold, as “slightly promiscuous”.
The handsome and dashing David is said to have had two children with different women.
With its creeper-covered turrets and fearsome gargoyles, Knebworth House was a crumbling ruin when Chryssie and David took on the task of restoration in 1969.
“There was always something leaking, rotting, falling off or needing repair,” says an old friend.
Headlines suggested that it was the music and its reputation as the best-organized festival in the world that ensured Knebworth paid its bills, but Lady Cobbold’s sewing skills were just as vital.
Thanks to her beginner years as a £3-a-week pattern maker at Worth, the London dressmakers, she reupholstered old chairs, sewed new curtains and cushions and refurbished old fabrics. And when she wasn’t sewing, she was wielding a paintbrush or hacking into overgrown flower beds.
With its turrets covered in climbing plants and its formidable gargoyles, the house was in ruins when she and David took charge of restoring it in 1969. Her parents were unable to give it up: “They offered it to the departmental council, then a series of public bodies, but they all said they couldn’t justify the expense,” Lady Cobbold recalled years later.
Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones in concert at Knebworth in the 1970s
David Lytton-Cobbold and his wife Chryssie on skateboards with their children, Peter, Richard and Rosina, at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire
Oasis, pictured, enjoyed sold-out concerts at Knebworth in the 1990s
“One day, while living in our London flat with our four children, we visited Syon House (the home of the Dukes of Northumberland in Brentford). We were very impressed with what they had done, so we thought: shall we try it too? »
Despite the fears of his father Kim, a former governor of the Bank of England and Lord Chamberlain to the late Queen Elizabeth, that the estate would be an impossible burden, the couple enthusiastically set about laying roads and building toilets and restaurants.
There have been challenges: Chryssie was woken up in her bed one day by mice nibbling on her toes. Although they had far less money than their big rivals such as Longleat and Woburn Abbey, when they opened two years later, visitors flocked. The house, a strange mix of Tudor and Victorian Gothic style, wasn’t the only attraction.
As well as an impressive collection of Jacobean furniture and tapestries, there were all sorts of curiosities – from Winston Churchill’s love letters to David’s grandmother, Pamela, Countess of Lytton, a renowned socialite beauty, up to a crystal ball left by an occultist whose ghost is said to stalk the Knebworth passages.
But finances were precarious. Salvation came with music. In 1974, they held their first concert with Van Morrison and the Allman Brothers headlining. The reviews were rave, and the era of country house rock had begun.
Later festivals featured Pink Floyd, Genesis, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Robbie Williams and, in August 1986, Freddie Mercury’s final concert with Queen. Oasis’ two concerts in the summer of 1996 were described as the “concert of the decade”, while the crowds of 125,000 each night were said to have resulted in Britain’s two biggest rock concerts. ever seen.
Inevitably, when rock star royalty stayed, stories of shady and unexpected behavior quickly proliferated. Mick Jagger is said to have left a pair of blue boxer shorts at the foot of the 16th century bed in which Queen Elizabeth I slept, while Noel Gallagher rang the doorbell to ask for a bath.
Chryssie’s worst moment came the first time she invited a group over for drinks. Waiting only for the members of Pink Floyd – and their wives and girlfriends – she pulled out a few ashtrays.
Forty people flocked to the house – “liggers,” as she called them – looking for a free drink. Just then the police and drug squad arrived to reflect on the day’s events and they too looked thirsty. “I gave them whiskeys in the kitchen while the group and their friends were in the office, as far as I could tell, rolling joints.”
Time stood still as she rushed to try and separate the two groups. “I almost collapsed with relief when the police left, oblivious to all the nastiness going on nearby,” she said.
But Chryssie was not the type to expect aristocratic formalities. With her long blonde hair, gentle manners, fascination with astrology and visits to Glastonbury, Lady Cobbold was, in many ways, an archetype of the 1960s. So was her husband. They married young – Chryssie was 20, David 23 – and, putting aside the prevailing prejudices of the time, adopted two Ugandan school friends of their eldest son Henry.
And in true 1960s style, their marriage survived what she once delicately called “mild promiscuity.” A more direct assessment would describe their marriage as an open one. The handsome and dashing David is said to have had two children with different women. For her part, Lady Cobbold acknowledged that there were “occasions when one was slightly promiscuous.” I think it’s just because everyone did it, only one did it too. But you get out of it.
“I think we talk way too much about sexual behavior. There is a lot of noise about adultery. Most people are probably guilty at one time or another, but a happy marriage should be able to handle occasional transgressions.
Certainly, she and Cobbold remained married until his death in 2022, living by this maxim. Neither his indiscretions nor his fondness for the bohemian Count of St Germans, thrice married, did anything to dent him.
When her husband died after years of battling Parkinson’s disease, she decorated his coffin with artwork from her favorite Pink Floyd album and placed a memorial bench next to his grave in Knebworth that read: ” See you soon on the far side of the Moon.”
A day after his death from pancreatic cancer, Lady Cobbold was buried next to him.
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