The papers have announced the death of John Chichester-Constable, owner of Burton Constable. I first went there in 1986, when York Castle Museum was asked to lend some toys for a film being made there. As Keeper of Costume (and dolls), I drove out there with the toys and stayed to watch over them. The hall door opened to a scene straight out of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: grand rooms so cold you could see your breath, in spite of log fires stoked by an elderly retainer, and a general sense of impending decay. Chichester-Constable’s great achievement was to preserve this anachronistic house and its treasures, which included a whale skeleton mentioned in Moby Dick, and a fine collection of family portraits. He kindly allowed me to use a painting of three Clifford children, c1810, on the cover of my book Children’s Clothes Since 1750. Let us hope that his efforts have secured Burton Constable for future generations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/30/john-chichester-constable?INTCMP=SRCH