One just has to take a look at the visitors’ book to get a handle on what I mean. There is Lucian Freud (the worst handwriting of the lot), Diana Mosley (another Mitford sister, who married Britain’s most infamous fascist), poet John Betjeman, writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, photographer Cecil Beaton and actor Dominic West. There are earls, dukes and other royals; there are soccer stars and rock stars. A young J.F.K. came to stay. There is Fred Astaire, his signature followed by a note from his sister, Adele, who lived at Lismore from 1936 to 1944 with her husband, Lord Charles Cavendish, younger brother of the tenth duke. “I thought he’d never leave,” Adele wrote in her delicate hand, beneath a missive from her brother.It would take days, weeks to discover every detail of this house. For this reason alone, Lismore is the best rental of its kind—utterly authentic.
(Departures Magazine)