A theatre of history
Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, part II The home of Elizabeth, Lady Ashcombe, and the Dent-Brocklehurst family
IN 1830, two brothers, John and William Dent, owners of a glove-making factory in Worcester, purchased an estate in the environs of Winchcombe on the edge of the Cotswolds from Lord Rivers. It may have been when inspecting their new property that the two men first visited the remains of Sudeley Castle, picturesquely nestled in a deep valley that opens out into the flood plain of the River Severn. The castle, ruinous, but partly occupied by tenants, was not in their possession. It already enjoyed an unusual degree of celebrity, however, and they evidently coveted it.
The fame of Sudeley was partly a product of its proximity to Cheltenham, which had developed as a fashionable spa town during the Regency. Indeed, no less a figure than George III made a day trip to the castle on his first visit to the town in 1788. When exploring the ruins, the King was saved from injury by one Mrs Cox, a resident, who used her own body to break his fall down a spiral stair. The story goes that she was rewarded with a commission in the Guards for
