Storied Collection - If Walls Could Talk: Recent Episodes
Storied Collection
Listen to amazing stories about Storied Collection properties. This collection of castles, manor houses, and historic estates offers guests insight into history, ancestry, and experiential travel
Mary Bruce was proteced by her brother,the rebel King of Scots, at his fortress, Kildrommey. But when the English army arrived, a traitor burned their provisions and they had to escape. The Earl of Atholl, their protector, helped them run away to St. Duthac's Sanctuary, but Earl William of Ross, who bore a grudge against Robert the Bruce, handed them to the English. King Edward had the Earl of Atholl hanged and Mary was sent to Roxburgh, where she was cruelly imprisoned in a cage strung over the castle walls for four years. Robert the Bruce eventually freed Mary by trading an English nobleman captured at battle in exchange, and awarded her and her husband with the lands of Cluny, which became her peaceful home as the first matriarch of the Gordon family. Mary's story has become a legend of the fight for Scottish independence.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/the-matriarch-of-cluny-castle/
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Dunskey Castle was located on a precipitous cliff in 18th century Scotland and was known for being haunted by evil spirits. Francis Grose reported that a rural preacher put the devil to flight at Dunskey Castle. The castle had an interesting history, as the castle was occupied by pirate Walter de Currie who kidnapped an Irish minstrel and imprisoned him in the dungeon of the castle. The minstrel eventually escaped down a secret tunnel, but sadly died from starvation trying to reach the freedom of the open sea. It is said that his ghost still plays his pipes at the castle on stormy nights.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/the-spirits-of-dunskey-castle/
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Thomas Bellingham and the Protestant elite gained power in Ireland during the rule of Cromwell in the late 1600s by displacing Catholic landowners. In 1649, Irish Catholics rose up and murdered the Protestant landowners sparking violence. Thomas Bellingham's father was rewarded with an estate in County Louth, during Cromwell’s Conquest of Ireland, where they constructed Bellingham Castle. When William and Mary, the Protestant king and queen, took the throne, Catholic Jacobites attacked the Protestant elite, burning Bellingham Castle in an attempt to regain power. Thomas Bellingham joined the king’s army in the Battle of Boyne and his knowledge of the terrain helped give William and Mary the upper hand and ensured victory for the Protestants. The Battle of Boyne marked the last significant challenge to Protestant Ascendancy that defined Irish life for centuries. Thomas Bellingham rebuilt his castle as a symbol of Protestant power and Protestants built monuments to commemorate their victory. When the Irish War of Independence broke out, Catholics tore down the monuments in an act of defiance.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/thomas-bellingham-and-the-protestant-ascendancy/
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Fitzpatrick Castle, previously known as Killiney Castle, was used as a training site for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to launch a bombing campaign on England in the late 1930s. The IRA had refused to accept the terms of the treaty which made the Irish Free State autonomous within the United Kingdom, and the six counties in the north remained under British rule. At the same time, Brendan Behan was studying how to manufacture and detonate bombs at Killiney Castle, his anti-British sentiment was surging as a result of his family's stories of the Easter Rising of 1916 and the brutality of the British repression. His poem to The Workers’ Republic served as a testament to the poverty in Ireland caused by the British. Behan was eventually caught by Scotland Yard in England with explosives and sent to prison. There, the violence of his ideals was smothered, and he began writing the book that would become Borstal Boy.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/a-rebels-bomb-factory-at-fitzpatrick-castle/
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The tradition of debutantes curtseying in front of the Queen at Buckingham Palace began in 1780 at an extravagant ball honoring Queen Charlotte's birthday. These debutantes wore powdered hair and Rococo dresses and the Queen Charlotte Ball opened the London season of events. A debutante’s presentation at court was her entry ticket into high society and their families expected them to marry someone of their class. The families at the highest-ranking were able to enter the palace through a private door, while the others had to wait in a crowded room outside the palace. Queen Victoria kissed the young women of noble blood while the commoners had to kiss her hand. Before the Rubens at the Palace was built in 1912, shops catering to the elites filled the block and young women spent weeks preparing for their presentation at court. In the 20th century, there were some changes to the rules and some impoverished aristocrats and American heiresses bribed their way into the ceremony. During World War II, presentations at court were postponed indefinitely and in 1957 the tradition officially ended with the last debutantes curtseying to Queen Elizabeth II.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/debutantes-arrive-rubens-at-the-palace/
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John Bolton was an 18th-century British "sojourner" who arrived in the West Indies with nothing and worked his way up to become an agent for a Liverpool investment firm. Bolton then returned to Liverpool a wealthy man, investing in the transatlantic slave trade and owning large plantations. In Liverpool, Bolton gained respectability and influence. During the height of his success, he was visited by famous writers Sir Walter Scott and William Wordsworth at his estate Storrs Hall. To showcase his wealth and power, Bolton held a regatta on Lake Windemere, where his friends and guests watched from the opposite shore.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/from-slave-ships-to-regattas-a-self-made-man-presides-over-storrs-hall/
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Patrick Whitelaw and his wife, Margaret Hamilton, built Fenton Tower to defend themselves from Scottish lawlessness and reivers. Whitelaw was loyal to Mary, Queen of Scots and was stripped of Fenton Tower for it. John Carmichael was the next Warden of the Marches. He was a conscientious keeper of the peace who earned the respect of the English but was killed by the Armstrongs who resented his law-abiding behavior. King James made the murderers pay with their lives, and eventually he had the authority to bring the reivers under his rule, ending centuries of violence in the region.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/fenton-tower-a-castle-built-for-anarchy/
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The MacKintosh Clan was divided when the Jacobites rose up against the British crown in the 1700s. Aeneas MacKintosh, the clan chief, hesitated to join the Jacobites but his wife Anne rallied 600 men to fight in a Jacobite army. Lachlan MacKintosh, the lord of Dalmunzie Castle, sympathized with the Glorious Revolution and the new Hanover dynasty. His son, John, inherited Dalmunzie and his MacKintosh cousins at the castle answered the call of Lady Anne. In April 1746, the Hanoverian and Jacobite armies met in battle.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/a-family-divided-dalmunzie-castle-and-the-jacobite-uprisings/
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Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, was born with his father's reputation for treason hanging over him; when the Tudors came to power, his family regained favor with the monarchy, though Buckingham was seen as dangerous due to his partial royal blood. Buckingham was known to be wealthy, and hosted extravagant parties; he was granted a license to fortify his manor at Thornbury Castle, and began building there in 1511. The castle was designed with crossbow loopholes and gun ports, in the style of a Medieval fortress, and he had planned to include four towers, but he was not able to complete it due to his untimely death. Buckingham and his wife lived in luxurious apartments overlooking an ornamental garden.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/prentenstions-to-royalty-at-thornbury-castle/
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Sir Archibold Gordon Kinloch was the son of a Scottish baronet and joined the military at age 20. He served the British empire with distinction, but was sent to the West Indies where he contracted a fatal fever, later named St. Lucia Fever. After recovering, Gordon returned to Scotland and was not the same as before. He had become sullen, irascible and jealous and his intelligence had declined. Dr. William Farquharson attended to him to help his recovery. Read or listen about his recovery at Gilmerton House in Scotland.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/murder-and-forgiveness-at-gilmerton/
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John Murray, Scottish landowner and Member of Parliament, commissioned Joshua Reynolds to paint his portrait in a fashionable style. To build his home, Cally House, Murray worked with an architect who he met on a Grand Tour of Italy and designed it in the classical style with granite pillars to evoke the Parthenon. He also reshaped the landscape surrounding his home to meet the ideals of a pastoral painting. Murray also took on the role of a social engineer and built a village a mile away from his mansion. In a few short years, he nurtured Gatehouse on Fleet into a thriving manufacturing town with a brewery and six mills.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/between-reason-and-passion-at-cally-house/
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Elizabeth Montagu was a well-educated woman born into a wealthy family in 1718. She married a man 28 years her senior, Edward Montagu, with the intention of establishing financial stability, allowing her to pursue her intellectual interests. In 1779, she bought a townhouse in the Royal Crescent in Bath, admiring its neoclassical architecture. The gendered norms of the 18th century were evident in the division of the men and women after dinner, though Montagu allowed her guests to move freely between the elegant rooms. Her house was a temple of friendship to brilliant minds who were invited for intellectual salons.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/a-bluestockings-refuge-an-early-feminists-salons-at-the-royal-crescent/
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During World War II, the luxurious hotel Rubens served as the headquarters in exile for Poland's government intent on recovering the country's independence. General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the Polish Prime Minister and Commander in Chief, led his staff from the Rubens. The Polish army was too small to reclaim their country, so Sikorski wanted to make the British feel indebted to the Polish through their participation in battle. To remind London of the Polish contribution, posters of Polish soldiers were hung throughout the city. Polish pilots were also part of the Royal Air Force, defending London against bombardment.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/fighting-for-polish-independence-from-the-rubens-at-the-palace/
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Elizabeth I’s 1598 crest adorns the entryway of Great Fosters, marking the year of her visit which was part of her “progresses” touring the English countryside. Hosts at Great Fosters were expected to entertain her and her court lavishly, and were unable to complain of any transgressions. Elizabeth I and Henry VIII used the Great Fosters as a hunting lodge, and she repeatedly enjoyed the thrill and refused to give it up even when her advisers urged her to.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/a-royal-visit-at-great-fosters/
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The Shelley family purchased Elcot Park in 1844, owned by Lady Elizabeth. Her son, the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, had died at the young age of 29. Shelley had been banished from his childhood home due to his atheism and rejection of God. His sisters, Hellen and Margaret, remained at Elcot Park after their mother passed away in 1846 and had watched as their brother's reputation transformed posthumously. Later on, biographer Thomas Jefferson Hogg met with the sisters and commented on their eerie similarity to their brother. Hellen and Margaret knew the importance of their early memories of Shelley, and spent their evenings at Elcot Park sharing stories about him.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/remembering-shelley-at-elcot-park/
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The Trussel family had a history of challenging the power of the crown and a Sir William Trussell was among the barons to force King John to sign the Magna Carta. Edward II ruled in favor of his favorites and confiscated land from barons. Sir William joined an army of dispossessed barons to punish Edward II and the Dispensers and was subsequently declared an enemy of the crown and imprisoned at Scarborough Castle. He managed to escape and allied with Edward II's wife Isabella and her lover Lord Mortimer against the king. Isabella admired King Arthur and was a fierce beauty.
Article: https://storiedcollection.com/resisting-tyranny-at-billesley-manor/
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