Weston Hall is famous as a Sitwell house, where Sir Sacheverell Sitwell and his Canadian wife, Georgia Doble, lived from their marriage in 1925 until her death in 1980 and his in 1988. It remained in the possession of his son Francis and was recently sold by the family. In the late 1920s it was a haven in the sleepy countryside for the Bright Young Things, who flocked there to escape the hectic life in London, or in some cases to bring their antics to the Northamptonshire countryside – and not only the Bright Young Things, but some of the most interesting figures of the 20th century, within an intellectual milieu. Francis Bamford, secretary to Sir George Sitwell, commended Weston Hall less for its architectural merit, but deserving attention ‘because of its association with the circle of friends, artists, writers and musicians whom during close to half a century [found] there ... peace, refreshment and renewed mental stimulation.’ [i]

On its own merit, Weston Hall was an enchanting house, John Pearson, biographer of the Sitwells describing it as ‘one of the most perfect lived-in small country houses in the country’.[ii] It is a Gothicised 17th century manor house, set in one of the lost villages of Northamptonshire, with a walled garden, fine lawns and ancient trees. Spread throughout the fifty rooms of the house and tucked away in the attics were furniture and other fascinating items, saved by generations of female owners, and giving the house a sense of the warmth of previous owners, of continuity and of a way of living hard to recapture in the 21st century. These contents were hailed by Francis Bamford, as ‘of exceptional charm and interest.’ [iii]

"A treasure-chest of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century objects, carefully hoarded by those generations of long-dead magpie ladies in its dusty rooms."

~ John Pearson

Weston Hall had come into Sir George’s possession in a rather touching way. Originally built in 1690, the hall passed through many generations via the female line. Between 1721 and 1923 seven of the eight owners were women. Since they seldom threw anything away, much survived. Osbert Sitwell wrote: ‘[Weston] is a place full of the past, and I have never known rooms in which you could hear more clearly the heart-beat of other centuries than our own.’ [vii]

Sir John Blencowe, a rich Northamptonshire squire and judge (Justice of the Common Pleas and of the King’s Bench), bought a seven-year lease for his widowed daughter, Susanna Jennens, later securing the freehold as a St Valentine’s Day gift for her in 1721. The era of Susanna Jennens is represented by a set of six mahogany chairs inlaid with needlework (lot 238), and the four-poster with George III needlework hangings, embroidered by Mrs Jennens (lot 235). Sir George cites this bed in his history of Weston Hall, hailing it as ‘an excellent example of its class’:

The background is of a reddish-brown, and the decoration consists of borders, wreaths, trails, and bunches of flowers – roses, lilies, hollyhocks, carnations, hyacinths, convolvulus, peonies, auricula, tulips, jasmine and honeysuckle. The tester is worked with a circular chaplet, and the back shows the common motive of two columns, in this case wreathed with flowers and connected by a hanging garland. 

Susanna was succeeded in 1760 by her son Richard Jennens, who died in 1773. His portrait by John Vanderbank is lot 24. He bequeathed the estate to his sister, Mary, second wife of a widower, Arthur Barnardiston, of Brightwell Hall, Suffolk. Her husband came from a family of merchants, which explains the presence of many of the Chinese and oriental items in the house. She made many additions to Weston. There were two portraits of her at Weston. A portrait of her son, also called Arthur, who died suddenly of measles at the age of six in February 1742/3 – painted by Rosalba Carriera is in the sale (lot 421).

Harriet married as her second husband, Colonel the Hon Henry Hely-Hutchinson (1750-1874), a gallant survivor of the Peninsular War and of the Battle of Waterloo. Harriet was Sir George Sitwell’s maternal grandmother.

Colonel the Hon Henry Hely-Hutchinson was the nephew of the celebrated General, Lord Hutchinson (later 2nd Earl of Donoughmore) (his portrait is for sale, lot 47), who quite intended to make Henry his heir, but when Henry produced five daughters and no son, he changed his mind and left his property to his nephew, the 3rd Earl of Donoughmore. Lot 50 comprises some Ottoman Mameluke Sabres with rhinoceros horn grips, said to have been presented to the General.

Harriet Hely-Hutchinson left Weston to her daughter, Lady Hanmer, who bequeathed to Sir George her personal fortune and all the furniture at Weston on her death in 1911. She begged him to buy the estate should it ever come on the market. When her sister, Georgiana Thomas, died in 1923, Sir George found the savings depleted by 40% and double death duties. He was told to remove the contents – eighteen vanloads – and had nowhere to put them. But in 1924 he was able to buy Weston and he passed everything over to his younger son, Sacheverell in trust for life.

Christmas 1927 found them entertaining Stephen Tennant, the very brightest of the Bright Young Things, with his lover, Siegfried Sassoon (who was so cold in the icy bedrooms that he overcame
his innate puritanism and spent most nights in Tennant’s bed), Cecil Beaton, Elizabeth Wyndham and the composer, William Walton. The weekend was made memorable by them being trapped in the snow, and indulging in dressing up, acting games, eating enormous meals, drinking and making home movies. Sassoon somewhat disapproved of the lipstick-stained glasses, heaving ashtrays and empty bottles that the servants had to remove each morning. In the New Year, Lord Berners, the mischievous composer, came from Faringdon, with Christabel Aberconway, William Walton again, and Zita Jungman, an enduring love of Sachie’s. This time it was a wet weekend, Berners doing his best to paint a picture of the kitchen garden from an upper window, the result condemned by Georgia as ‘a dreary little picture.’ [ix]

"... the circle of friends, artists, writers and musicians whom during close to half a century [found] there... peace, refreshment and renewed mental stimulation." 

~ Francis Bamford

Numerous are the guests who stayed at Weston, William Walton composing most of Belshazzar’s Feast there in 1931. The role of Sir William Walton within the Sitwell family has always been intriguing. The artist Lawrence Mynott who sketched Sachie, and is therefore something of a physiognomist, is convinced that he is a Sitwell by birth. Walton’s nose was like Edith’s, a snipe’s beak, which led people to believe he was an illegitimate Sitwell, the composer Constant Lambert promoting the idea that he had been sired by Sir George, with the lesbian composer, Dame Ethel Smyth, as his mother. The sale contains his manuscript for the valse for Façade, which Edith Sitwell performed through a megaphone to Walton’s musical accompaniment (lot 301).