Evening star., 1923-03-19
Earl Of Rocksavage, Tennis Enthusiast,
Becomes Important Peer of the Realm

on each side and statues over the
| center. was formerly approached BY
a magnificent double fight of marble
steps and marble balustrades. These
thrift George Walpole. third Earl of
| oxford, who .staked them one night
at a game of cards played at HouGh-
! ton Hall and lost them The winner
claimed them and had them carted
away a few days afterward, and
they have never until now been re-
stored, nor has the vacant place been
| flied.
1t was this same George. Earl OF
oxford, third of his line. who. in Or
der to. raise the necessary money to
pay his enormous gambling debts,
sold what was in those days the finest
private collection Of paintings in eX-i
| istence. They were purchased by EN-
! press Catherine of Russia, and be-
came the nucleus of the celebrated
museum of paintings at the Hermi-
| tage Palace at Petrograd There are
| STILL however. some very nne pic
lures left at Houghton Hall. includ-
ting a number @; Nandykes and ReN-
nolds.
Among the features of the house
are the door and doorway leading
from the great hall TO the principal
salon, the door being cut out Of
solid piece of magnificent mahogany.
In fact, this door and doorway cost
the Waipoles some $4,000. The state
bedroom, with its furniture OF green
velvet. embroidered and laced with
gold. has, like the grand salon, a cell
hing PAINTED by Kent. The bed. which
| cost $4,000 has been occupied by
George ". by Edward VII and by the
present king. Neither the latter nor
his father, Edward VII. had any fault
to find with the apartments preserved
for them. But George ~ was very
angry with his host for placing him
in a room which he knew to be
haunted.
heard uncanny sights and sounds dur
ing the night that he spent there, and
while he refused to enter into any
details. he left Houghton Hall the
next morning and never alter"aLu
latter's brother, although they. had.
been until then favorite members OF
his household.
THE hall enjoys the distinction of
being haunted, not merely py one,
but by two ghosts, and il is possible
THAT George " may have been Wis
tied by both. One is supposed 10 be
a little brown lady, believed 70 nave
been that unhappy Dorothy Wa!poIe
who married Charles. second Wis
count Townsend. while the other su-
pernatural denizen OF HougRton
Hall is asserted to be the ghost Of a
man who was killed by his brother In
a duel in the apartment now used as
a billiard room.
!; X * x
Lord Rocksavage had for time
an American sister-in-law, the wife
Of his only brother, Lord George
Cholmondeley. She was the former
Clara Elizabeth Taylor Of Omaha,
Neb., who was brought up in Wash'
ington. From there she went to New
York to appear in the wild Rose
company and later to London with
IShubert's Dolly Warden" outfit. She
married Capt. George Stirling OF the
Scots Guards, Laird Of .Rippendarie.
and when he divorced her, under very
sensational circumstances, naming
! Lord Northland as correspondent
(killed.. as the case. OF RanfurlX. in
the great war), she married Lord
George Cholmondeley. The union did
not last long. It was sundered in
l1s21 by another divorce. after the
birth Of a little girl. Lord Georges
only sister, Lady Lettice CholrnoRdf-
LEY, q famous beauty in her day, has
likewise been forced to divorce her
husband, Mai, Cecil Harrison of the
! royal artillery