TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM | SEPTEMBER 2019 139
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quickly,” says Davina Barber (née Duckworth-Chad), an old family
friend of William’s, at her home near Pynkney Hall, family seat of the
Duckworth-Chads. But then reports of a rift spread in the British press
before ricocheting around social media and dubiously sourced royal
blogs. The duchess was said to have shut Rose out of her social circle.
Local WhatsApp groups were “buzzing.” As neither house deigned to
comment publicly on the rumors, the mill then slowed down again
until, in June, both couples arrived at Buckingham Palace.A
nmer Hall dominates the tiny village of the same name, which
has been here for at least 1,000 years. A looping drive leads
to Saint Mary the Virgin Church and ends abruptly at a pair
of unmarked oak gates. A sign offers a stern warning to would-be
snoopers: “This is a protected site under the Serious Organised Crime
and Police Act.”
Anmer—and North Norfolk at large—has been a sanctuary for
the Cambridges, and its residents are protective of its discreet atmos-
phere. Weeks after the rumors began to circulate, along with the Tur-
nip Toff headlines, the gentlest inquiry is shot down faster than an
overweight partridge. “It’s a load of bollocks,” Lady Leicester says. Her
friend Monica Vinader, a Spanish-born Norfolk jeweler, has joined
us for lunch. She is delighted that the Duchess of Cambridge has
just worn a pair of her earrings at the Chelsea Flower Show in Lon-
don, but that’s as much royal chat as she is prepared to have. Des-
mond MacCarthy insists, “There
are more interesting things to talk
about.” Meanwhile, Davina Bar-
ber rolls her eyes so hard they
nearly fall out.
It’s hard to gauge in the with-
ering responses where denial
meets discretion. But whatever
the truth, there is a weariness
of the tabloids’ interest in the
county and the code of omertà
that has become as much a part
of the culture as worn-out car-
pets and freezers full of pheasant.
Farther east along Norfolk’s
bulge, Tom Blofeld lives in Hove-
ton House, a Jacobean mansion
his family built in 1680. He won’t
touch any gossip either, but he
is willing to muse on Norfolk’s
peculiar position. The area’s early
gentry made enough money from
their land to build grand houses,
but Norfolk’s relative isolation, and its featureless, flat landscape,
meant the land never became so valuable that those families were
tempted to cash in. The vast majority who stayed also retained a
modesty still acknowledged in the “Turnip” tag.
“Norfolk hasn’t got a cachet, which I personally think is a mas-
sive cachet,” says Blofeld, who snorts intermittently as if trying to
blow poisoned darts from his nose. When “brash city boys” from
1980s London, as Blofeld puts it, bought up mansions in the more
obviously desirable Cotswolds—where Prince Harry and Duchess
Meghan have taken up residence—they spared Norfolk. “And what
you find here are people who are the countryside and who care about
the people who work here. It’s much more integrated.”The Turnip Toffs, such as they are, avoid con-
spicuous socializing. The diary revolves around
shooting, fêtes, garden parties, and 50th birth-
day lunches that start late and stretch into the
night. The younger earls drink in the pubs
alongside the locals. Ladies who lunch now
make a beeline for Socius, a new restaurant in Burnham Market
that is doing a roaring trade in viognier during the Wednesday rush.
Shoots are deliberately modest. “You go to the West Country
and they’re shooting 350 birds off cliffs in Devon and Madonna
shows up,” says Blofeld, whose
grandfather was at Eton with Ian
Fleming and inspired the James
Bond villain. “People here would
turn those invitations down
flat. You shoot small shoots for
local people with 70 birds, hard
fought for.” The grouse here are
at least spared the ignominy of
being shot out of the sky by an
oligarch—or David Beckham—
dressed in spotless tweed. This is
old money shooting, and lunch
is perfunctory. “I just offer sau-
sages and haul a couple of bot-
tles of cheap crap port out to the
shooting pitch and we neck it,”
Blofeld says.
While most families have
managed to cling to their seats,
the profits from farming have
steadily declined, while the cost
of keeping the houses stand-
ing has soared. An urgent spirit of enterprise now unites them. At
Holkham the Leicesters are determined to challenge the Downton
Abbey stereotype; Lord Grantham would blanch at the scale of the
commercial operation, which includes a wedding venue, a restaurant,
and an RV park by the sea. Blofeld built Bewilderwood, an adventure
park inspired by a series of children’s books he wrote.
“I think it was our last estate director who said that it takes a year
per mile out of London for new ideas to reach Norfolk,” Lady Leices-
ter says. “But that’s changing.” Even MacCarthy is diversifying. At
Wiveton he has holiday cottages and a popular café where you can
buy replicas of his eyebrows on plastic glasses at the little giftshop.
Where turnip culture remains, Blofeld says itENGLISH ROSES
The marchioness
was a wedding guest
of Will and Kate’s;
her grandmother
was a bridesmaid
to the future queen
in 1947.[CONTINUED ON PAGE 150]HILBOROUGH HOUSE
This neo-Palladian manor is home
to the four Van Cutsem brothers
(Nicholas and William are seen
here), who are longtime pals of
William and Harry, as their father
was to Charles.