ALAS, I do not have history with Elveden Hall. Twice now I have been unable to attend a contents sale at the Guinness house in Suffolk. In 1984, when I was working for The Times, Christie’s organised a sale on the premises, which cleared it almost completely. Unfortunately, a contretemps with the auctioneer’s press office provoked our news editor into banning any mention of the sale in the paper, and I was unable to visit and view. This was doubly galling, as it was one of East Anglia’s most intriguing and least accessible great houses.
It had been owned by the
