I was recently flicking through an old copy of 'Country Life' (from sometime late in 2005) and, in the property section, I came across a double-page spread devoted to the Cavendish home, Little Onn Hall, which had just been placed on the market. There was a wonderful colour photograph of this really rather impressive pile, surrounded by extensive landscaped gardens. The interiors looked to be quite grand too. I can't remember what the asking price was but it was somewhere in the region of £2,000,000 (and doubtless would have been much, much more, if a house of this size had been located in a more 'fashionable' part of the country than rural Staffordshire).
What struck me was that the writer of the article made no reference to the Cavendishes, although a potted history of the house was given. I found this very surprising - in these days when all things 'Titanic'-related cause a stir of interest, you'd think that the estate agent would have really played up the connection. I gather that, in 1912, Tyrell Cavendish was only renting Little Onn from the then-owner - forgive me if this has already been covered, but does anybody know why he and Julia were living in a relatively obscure English county?
Once, in an idle moment at work, I looked up Julia Cavendish in an old peerage dating from the mid-1950s...even though Tyrell had been dead for decades by that time, his aristocratic connections meant that his widow was still automatically listed. The address given for her was in Kensington, somewhere close to Gloucester Road. I went to check it out when I was next in the area. Julia's house stands in a VERY elegant neighbourhood, in a small, secluded square, away from the hustle and bustle of the busy roads nearby. Whoever lives there now is obviously very wealthy indeed, as the property is extremely well-cared for and, in today's prices, would cost very many millions.
