The Salomons Museum

This section considers the history of Broomhill, near Tunbridge Wells, the country home of the Salomons family for a hundred years, and the location, today, of the Salomons Museum.

It looks at the many changes to the house over that period. Some of them are a little difficult to follow, so the story is probably best understood by splitting it into two parts: the creation of the new Broomhill by David and Jeannette (1850-70); and the gradual expansion of that house by David Lionel and Laura (1870-1914).

The section also considers other properties owned by the Salomons near Broomhill, and some of their London homes.

Broomhill Cottage

In 1829 David Salomons acquired Broomhill Cottage, 'a very elegant, small leasehold villa' with 36 acres of land. It was a new house, perhaps three or four years old. The previous owner had been GG Downes, an East India (tea) broker with a Marylebone address. The land, though, was owned by the (Baden) Powell family of Speldhurst, a mile or so away.

The house occupied the same position as the present Broomhill, though it was smaller, with library, dining room, drawing room, and five 'neat bed chambers'. The land, still agricultural, was the main attraction, picturesquely wooded, and sloping down to a mill-pond in the valley below. Most of the service functions: stables, kitchen, brewhouse, etc, were in separate buildings. Some were on the far side of the public road from Southborough to Rusthall which at that time ran immediately in front of the house

The Salomons owned the property for the next twenty years though how they used it is not entirely clear. They are recorded at Broomhill Cottage in the 1841 census, but, as shown below, they also owned a second property only four miles away.

Burrswood

In 1832 the Burrswood estate was advertised for sale: over 500 acres of productive agricultural land of a 'Romantic and highly Picturesque Character', near Groombridge, three miles west of Tunbridge Wells. Perhaps Salomons was attracted by the idea of a freehold investment. Perhaps he was concerned by proposals for a railway from Penshurst to Tunbridge Wells which would have run through the grounds of Broomhill.*

Salomons bought Burrswood and had the prominent architect Decimus Burton build him a new country house there. It was described as 'a handsome structure, chiefly in the Elizabethan style'.** Burrswood was a working agricultural estate; Salomons might have seen it as a way of becoming 'landed gentry'. He was President of the local Agricultural Society, and each autumn he hosted a 'harvest home' supper for the farm-workers. Even then this was thought of as an event from 'days long past'. He perhaps retained Broomhill Cottage as a sort of summer-house.

* Salomons himself was a significant investor in early railways - perhaps he also saw Burrswood as a valuable site on a possible western route into Tunbridge Wells.

** Christopher Greenwood. Epitome of County History, Vol 1. Kent. 1838.

The Sale of Burrswood

The story within the family was that David Salomons sold Broomhill in about 1850, but that Jeannette regretted the decision and they decided to sell Burrswood instead. Fortunately they were able to retrieve Broomhill from its new owner. There is nothing in the museum collection, though, to collaborate this.*

Burrswood was advertised in the Morning Post in May 1850. It was said to offer 'unusual advantages to families returning from India or the Continent', the 'salubrity of the neighbourhood', being 'proverbial'. The Salomons left in 1852. The artist Solomon Alexander Hart, a friend of the family, did a painting of hop-picking at Burrswood that year - it hung on the stairs at Broomhill for many years. See more about Hart here.

Prior to leaving Burrswood Salomons had spoken to the son of one of his labourers. The boy had 'evinced such ignorance' that Salomons determined to build a school in the area. It was difficult to find a suitable site, but eventually, in 1859, a school was opened in the nearby village of Ashurst see.

* The 1851 census appears to record a girls' boarding school at 'Broomhill Cottage', run by J.L. Gerrard, 'professor of languages', but it may refer to a different building.

The New Broomhill

Between about 1850 and 1852 the 'Cottage' was demolished and a new Broomhill was built. The new building forms the core of the present house, including the two museum rooms. Unfortunately few documents survive from the period, so it is not possible to say with any certainty who designed, or who built it.

There had been changes as early as 1845, when Salomons had the local road diverted away from the house in a long curve to the east - as at present. He probably also at that time added to the estate, and bought the freehold - the original lease on part of the estate would have expired in 1847.

It may be that the architect Decimus Burton worked on the new Broomhill. He designed Burrswood, so there was an obvious connection. Most of Burton's work in the area, though, was done in the 1830s, so commentators have assumed that any involvement related to the earlier Broomhill Cottage. Yet he remained a friend of the family - they met, for example, in Paris in 1844 - and there is an intriguing reference in a local builder's diary to measurements from Broomhill being sent up to a Mr Sandall in Spring Gardens (that was in 1862). Burton's office was in Spring Gardens and his long-time assistant was a Mr Sandall.

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The new house (i)

The new building was of stone - probably from a quarry at the bottom of the grounds. The only images that survive from the early years are of the south elevation, and show a 2-storey central pavilion flanked by single-storey wings. The central section had a pitched roof, though this was partly hidden by a parapet.

There are no detailed floor plans from that period, but we might use the footprint of the house from the 1869 OS map to consider the ground-floor layout see.

The three south-facing rooms (C,D,E), with interconnecting doors, were meant for display: the picture gallery see, the drawing room see and the sculpture room see (note that these pictures are from thirty to forty years later).

The use of these rooms for display is described further in the 'Collecting Bug' section. They were also the main setting for the fancy-dress ball in 1879.

The new house (ii)

The ground-floor layout is fairly similar today. Room F was the original library see and currently forms part of the museum. The dining-room (G) see is perhaps less obvious: it is currently used as a lounge and known as 'Burrswood'. There were originally two staircases in the hall (B), though it is not clear whether this was a double staircase, or simply a main staircase and separate 'back stairs'.

Very little is known of the area in blue, other than that there was a 'winter garden' at X. This was also part of the 'display' space. The young builder mentioned above was shown around it by Jeannette Salomons when he visited to take measurements. The remaining parts were probably service areas. The ground rises very steeply at this point - other service functions probably continued in the earlier ancillary buildings across the road to the north-east.

The new house (iii)

This second image of the south front gives some indication that there was a more significant structure to the right, of three storeys into a mansard roof, and positioned above the main entrance. The late 19th century picture of the main front, shown above and repeated here see, gives an indication of its possible appearance, though the tall structure on the extreme right came later.

Little is known of the layout and use of the upper floors, or of that section to the right which stands slightly forward. That right-hand section currently includes a back-stairs, so, despite its prominent position, it might have been a service area. A list of rooms in 1877* mentions a boudoir and smoking-room. From their position in the list they may have been upstairs, facing east, above the main entrance. Four bedrooms were also identified, named Primrose, Vine, Hyacinth and Heath.

* The list indicated where the picture collection was hung, so it only included the more important rooms. It was by then four years into David Lionel's ownership so may not be a perfect guide to the layout in the 1850s and 60s.

Stables and lodges

Diverting the public road away from the house meant that the estate could be made more private. Lodges at the entrance points emphasised this separation from the public space.

A new coach-house/stable block was built up the slope behind the house. Built of stone like the main house, it had an ornate clock-tower. A second view of the clock-tower see, from the south-west, demonstrates the steepness of the slope, and shows part of the winter garden which occupied the north-western corner of the main house. The position of the stables is shown on the 1866 OS map see.

The lodges may have been built a year or two later than the stables (see below for the possible involvement of architect George Devey). The Upper (or North) Lodge see was 'Olde-English' in design, and remains in place, though its appearance was changed in a recent refurbishment.* The Lower (South) Lodge see was smaller, and its design a little more restrained. It survived until the 1930s, but is now gone. The southern drive was probably the main approach to the house.

* See the reference to the 'Salomons Cottage' here.

Gardens and grounds

Inside Broomhill, the picture gallery and statue room were used to demonstrate the taste and cultural awareness of its owner. There were further opportunities for display out-of-doors. The land adjoining the Upper Lodge may have been a productive kitchen garden, but the rest of the estate was a show-case of formal gardens and landscaped woods and fields. The 1850s saw a fashion for wellingtonias (Giant Sequoia), newly discovered in California: Salomons planted at least two. He used the artificial stone Pulhamite to construct an ornamental cliff-face and a fernery. The lily-pond, nestling in trees to the south-east of the house see, may have been a clever re-purposing of an old marl-pit.

The Gardener's Cottage see, like the Upper Lodge, was a striking Olde-English design quite unlike the stables and main house. It was probably by the architect George Devey who was active at Penshurst, three or four miles from Broomhill, throughout the 1850s.* His vernacular style was considered very appropriate for estate buildings. He later did a lot of work for the Rothschilds in Buckinghamshire. The Broomhill building survived into the 1950s.

* Jill Allibone cites a cottage design produced by Devey for Salomons in 1855 (in the RIBA archive). It doesn't quite match the actual building, but has many of the same design elements.

Expansion

In 1873 Broomhill became the property of David Lionel Salomons, and its development over the following half-century reflected his interests and personality. In that time the main house doubled in size, and new stables, gardens and a theatre, were built. Many of the changes reflected his interest in 'Science and Technology', though some were just addressing the needs of a larger family. Perhaps in this period David Lionel and Laura began to see Broomhill, rather than their London house, as their main residence.

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Tower and workshops

When David Lionel inherited Broomhill in 1873 he was still a student at Cambridge. He very quickly, though, started to adapt the building for his own use. By 1876 he had built the tower. Often thought of as a 'water tower' it was actually built as an observatory. It originally had a conical roof and an external walkway, though these were gone by the 1890s. The tower is built of pale brick, with battlements - not a good match for the main house. The young David Lionel clearly had a Romantic side.

As impressive as the tower, though in a rather different way, was the workshop, built in 1880. This was a single-storey structure between the main house and the stables. It housed some of the most sophisticated machine-tools in private ownership see. From the start (1874) Salomons experimented with electricity, lighting his workshops with arc-lamps. The electricity was generated in a long, low building see just to the east of the workshop.

All three structures survive, the tower obviously so, prominent in the landscape. The workshop is now incorporated within the main house - divided into the lecture-room called 'Vera Bryce' and the adjacent Theatre Bar. The generator building is used as a workshop and stores.

Additions to the house

David Lionel married in 1882 and turned his attention to the main house. In 1883 he built the East Wing - at right-angles to the main front, creating the feel of a courtyard in front of the house. It was used mainly as a service area - servants' hall, butler's bedroom, and dairy on the ground floor; day and night nurseries above; and seven servants' bedrooms at the top*.

Focus then turned to new stables and theatre (see below), but there must have been continuing work on the main house, on a new main staircase, for example see.

Further changes were made around 1910. A new library was built on the site of the Winter Garden see. Extra rooms were added on the second floor of the main block, and the previous pitched rooflines replaced by a flat front topped with parapet see. The replacement of the double columns on the south front loggia with single columns was possibly done at the same time.

* The building work was done by the local firm of J Crates. Salomons laid on a celebratory dinner in a marquee at the Harp Hotel for the ninety workers employed. He referred to the new wing as the 'infant asylum' (cheers and laughter).

The New Stables and Oak Lodge

Between 1890 and 1894 Salomons built a large new coach-house and stables, with space for twelve carriages and twenty one horses. It incorporated state-of-the-art features, such as hot-water heating and electric lighting, but most important was its eye-catching design. Salomons designed it himself, working with the local architect, William Barnsley Hughes. The building is of red brick and white Portland stone see set around a central courtyard. The style is of a 16th century French chateau with much ornamentation.

The main block housed the carriages with staff accommodation above. It has three storeys and is topped by an ornate cupola see. The wings are 2-storey with stalls and loose-boxes on the ground floor, and storage lofts above. The small octagonal building on the front corner was a forge.

A new main drive was constructed to run past the stables, with a substantial new lodge at its entrance - Oak Lodge see. Salomons' sister, Stella Paget, lived there from about 1901, with her own separate establishment: cook, maid, etc.

The Science Theatre

By 1894 the old stable block was redundant and Salomons was able to use the space to the north of the main house for his next project - building a theatre. It was a double-height space with a stage and galleries on three sides; initially intended as a lecture theatre where he could publicise scientific developments. The rear gallery housed his projection equipment - he was a great enthusiast for the magic-lantern see. The other galleries and much of the space at the back of the theatre were packed with equipment for scientific experiments and demonstrations see. Adjacent to the theatre he built a photographic studio and dark-rooms, and a couple of laboratories.

Salomons then became interested in the technological possibilities of theatre itself - lighting, audio, the mechanical manipulation of scenery, curtains, etc., and, of course, moving pictures see. In the years before the First World War the stage was extended and a series of organs - that ultimate application of technology in the service of entertainment - was installed. The last of these, the Welte Philharmonic of 1914*, remains in place today see.

* More details of the organ will be provided in the 'Science & Technology' section.

Gardens, Grounds and Garages

In 1888-90 extensive glass-houses were erected to the north-east of the house. The manufacturers were Crompton & Fawkes of Chelmsford.* In front of the glass-houses were extensive beds for flowers and fruit: sixty varieties of apple, forty-five of pears, and many more exotic types such as peach and melon. The gardens were featured in 'Garden Life' magazine in 1905 see.

In the valley to the south-west of the house a boating lake was created** see, enhancing the picturesque views from the house. Further to the south, and hidden from the house, was a more 'industrial' area. This included the quarry which had provided stone for the house, and buildings that might have been the 'gas-works' marked on the 1869 map (above). There was also 'Quarry Lodge' see, possibly dating from 1879, though perhaps earlier (now Oriel Cottage, in private ownership).

Having completed his new stables in 1894, Salomons became interested in 'horseless carriages'. He saw that they had very specific requirements and built 'motor-stables' (garages) along the eastern side of the theatre see - some of the first in the country. See 'here' for more details.

* Crompton & Fawkes were noted suppliers of glass-houses, but can it have just been a coincidence that Crompton, like Salomons, was a pioneer of electricity?

** The date of the lake is not known, though a Times article in 1881 recorded that, 'for the second time in four years', the Tonbridge Angling Club had been allowed to drag the ornamental ponds for fish stocks. Reference was made to the 'master pond' and the 'large pond' (1,500 carp and roach were taken).

Expansion

The original Broomhill Cottage came with 36 acres. By the end of the century the Salomons land-holdings were perhaps fifteen times as great. It was a gradual increase. A government survey in the early 1870s (the 'new Domesday Book') recorded all land-holdings in the country. An 1877 edition for Kent recorded 243 acres for Sir D Salomons. There was a pencilled annotation, though, that 'Sir David has since purchased 317 acres'.

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Acquisitions

Most of the new land was to the south of Broomhill, an area of picturesque valleys and hill-sides which form the main view from the house. The map gives some indication of the extent of the acquisitions: south towards Lower Green in Rusthall; and south-east towards the Culverden/St Johns area of Tunbridge Wells. Unfortunately there is no key so it is not clear what the colours signify.

A principal objective was to protect the views from Broomhill. One acquisition, of Culverden Down (the hillside where the Tunbridge Wells football stadium now stands) caused problems when David Salomons tried to block a traditional footpath across it. In 1869 he also bought Huntleys - see below. The fuss over the blocked footpath was as nothing compared to the outrage when, in 1876/7, David Lionel Salomons bought Hurst Wood - a local beauty spot cherished by visitors and residents alike, and started cutting down the trees. He also bought up 21 unsold plots in Bishops Down Park.*

It may be that David Lionel tried to develop part of the area (Down Lane and Culverden Park) in the later 1870s but with no current access to local archives it is difficult to be sure. In 1883 he sold off the Bishops Down Park plots. Two later developments, described below, are more clear-cut.

* A date of 1865 has been given for this in the past - the actual date seems to have been 1876.

Broomhill Bank

Broomhill Bank and its estate of about 125 acres (marked in grey on the map) was bought by Salomons in 1887 on the death of its previous owner, W.D. Alexander. (The land between it and Broomhill, with the mill and associated farm buildings had already been acquired, possibly during the 1850s.) The Broomhill Bank house dates from the early 1840s, possibly a little earlier see.

Salomons initially leased out the house, but gave it to his daughter Ethel after her marriage to Alexander Richardson in 1915. The marriage, though, wasn't a success and Ethel sold the house back to her father. On his death he left it to Vera, and in 1927 she sold it - to Sir Kingsley Wood, MP. It is now a school.

One unusual feature of Broomhill Bank is that it had a private chapel see - built by Alexander in 1877 as a 'mission church', to provide an evangelical alternative to the people of Rusthall (the parish church was a little 'high'). It stands across the road from the main buildings. When Sybil Salomons died in 1899 she was buried behind the chapel, and it became a private burial ground for the family. The chapel was retained by Vera when the rest of Broomhill Bank was sold. It is now a private house.

Huntleys

The story of the area to the east of Broomhill Bank is a little more complicated. In the 1820s, Jacob Jeddere Fisher built Great Culverden, at the northern end of Tunbridge Wells (the site, until recently, of the Kent & Sussex Hospital). He bought a separate block of land - half a mile to the north-east - from John and William Huntley, and built two follies there: a 'Swiss cottage' and a 'castle'. He also upgraded an existing farmhouse to form 'Culverden Villa' (shown).

In the late 1860s David Salomons bought this second plot from Fisher's son. He also acquired adjacent plots to the south and east.* In the early 1880s David Lionel sold the central portion, with the villa, to a Mrs Allnut. Ten years later he bought it back. By then 'Huntleys' had become a 'substantial and well-appointed family mansion', with grounds of 33 acres see. In the 1890s it was occupied by the dowager Marchioness of Anglesey, but when Maud Salomons married in 1906, the house was given to her and her husband, John Harvey Blunt.

Culverden Castle remained a distinct property see, and again seems to have been leased out by the Salomons. In the 1890s it was occupied by Julius Drewe, owner of Home & Colonial Stores.

* Part of the Culverden Park estate of Hans Busk.

Dispersal

David Lionel continued to buy land - southwards towards Rusthall and eastwards to St Johns Road (A26). He obviously saw a long-term future for it in family hands. In his will (1925) he left Huntleys, Culverden Castle, and the surrounding land to Maud; and Broomhill Bank (as above) to Vera. He spoke of 'lineal descendants' who would occupy Broomhill itself; and he left instructions to prevent building on neighbouring properties to protect the views.

In practice the family remained in the area for less than twenty years. Vera sold Broomhill Bank in the 1920s, and gave Broomhill to KCC in the 1930s (see 'here'). Maud and her husband sold off parcels of their land and left Huntleys in the late 1930s. In the 1940s it was used as a secretarial training college and then a military hospital. In 1951 a generous donation from Lady Elena Bennett allowed it to be acquired to form the Bennett Memorial Diocesan School*. Culverden Castle was demolished in the 1950s.

* The land to the east of Huntleys was used for the Huntleys Practical Instruction Centre, later Huntleys Secondary School for Boys, and is now housing (Huntley's Park). The land to the south, which became Culverden Golf Club in the 1890s, was also converted, in the 1960s, to housing (Coniston Avenue, Rydal Drive, etc) and schools: Rose Hill and Bishop's Down Primary.

London

The main focus of these notes has been on Broomhill - the Salomons' property near Tunbridge Wells. But Broomhill, acquired in 1829, was only a country retreat. The Salomons were a London family, their wealth and standing came from the City. Over time Broomhill grew in importance - the first four censuses, from 1841 to 1871 find the Salomons at their London home; in the next four, 1881 to 1911, they are at Broomhill. A London house, though, remained important for social and cultural purposes - to see and be seen.

This section seeks to identify the Salomons' London houses, and explain a little about the role that each one played.

Childhood homes - David and Jeannette

David Salomons was born in 1797 at 4 Bury Street, St Mary Axe. Today Bury St. is dominated by the 'Gherkin' and other huge office buildings. In 1797 it was already a centre of finance, but it was also still residential. In some cases, merchants/bankers simply lived 'above the shop'; in others they needed to be near the 'exchanges' where they did business. It is not clear how long the family continued to live there - no. 4 was advertised for letting in 1809 on the death of Solomon Salomons (David's grandfather).* But in 1825 a 'superb and spacious residence' in Bury St, home of Levi Salomons, was destroyed by fire. This was probably David's father,** who from the 1820s until his death in 1843, lived at 4 Crosby Square, about 400 yards away see. In 1837 the New Synagogue was opened next door (see *here* for the Salomons' religious affiliations).***

Jeannette's family, the Cohens, were also from that same small area - her grandfather, Levi Barendt Cohen, lived in Bury St too, at no 8. When Jeannette was born, though, her parents may have been living in Angel Court, off Throgmorton St. They later made the rather dramatic move out to Islington, to Grove House, in Canonbury Place. It was a 'large house, built of red brick, simple and dignified'. The important point was that it was set within green fields, with views across the New River, to the City, four miles away see.

* In the 1820s it was used as a 'manufactory' of shoes and patent waterproof goloshes.

** Newspaper reports describe him as a diamond merchant, which was certainly part of the family's commercial background, but it might possibly have been someone else.

*** In the 1830s Levi also acquired property in Frant, just south of Tunbridge Wells, possibly Riverhall, on the boundary with Wadhurst.

3/26 Great Cumberland Place

By the 1820s this separation of home from place of business was becoming more commonplace. For much of their married life David and Jeannette had a London house in Great Cumberland Place, near Marble Arch, while David's business address continued to be in the City. While this part of the West End was also on the edge of the built-up area, the attraction here was more fashionable society than country living. The houses were imposing, four or five storeys high, in a west-facing crescent. (It is not clear exactly when they acquired it. The usual story is that it was soon after their marriage, but there is little to actually link them to the house until much later. In 1830 and 31 David was recorded at 11 York Gate (at the entrance to Regents Park) see and later at York St in Marylebone.)

The houses were badly damaged during WW2, but were rebuilt in a similar fashion, with a statue of Raoul Wallenberg in front see. The Salomons house, no.3, is now part of the Western Marble Arch Synagogue. (It was called no.3 when 'Gt Cumberland Place' related only to the crescent, but no.26 when the name was applied to the whole road.)*

In the early 1850s David's brother, Philip Salomons, had a house in Hereford Street, just across Oxford Street from Great Cumberland Place.

* In 1835 David's address was given as 16, Cumberland Street, Portman Square. Cumberland St seems to have been the northern section of Gt Cumberland Place. Was this a different house, or just another version of the address?

49 Grosvenor Street

When David Salomons died in 1873 he left the Gt Cumberland Place house to Cecilia, his second wife, who lived there until her death in 1892. David Lionel Salomons, who inherited Broomhill, was linked to a number of London addresses: Upper Berkeley Street, in 1875, close to the Great Cumberland Place house; and Chepstow Place in Bayswater, in 1879. This latter may have been because his sisters, newly married, were living in the area. In 1882 he was in Bruton St, off Berkeley Square. He was married by then and maybe his wife, Laura, liked Mayfair. In 1888 they acquired no. 49, Grosvenor Street, nearby.

It was a four-storey house built about 1725 - much earlier than the other Salomons properties, and more restrained in design. The Doric portico was added in 1888, so perhaps by Salomons himself (and he may have added the cast-iron balcony too).

Alfred Waterhouse had made alterations in the 1870s and there was further work in 1882, to the rear wing.* The large ground-floor room there is described as having a deep Italianate cornice with small painted panels between scrolls; and broad pilasters with long panels inset with French-style arabesques painted on canvas. The drawing room above had a gilded cornice and ceiling piece (Survey of London). The building currently provides serviced offices, so details such as these are not obvious, but the central, top-lit staircase can still be appreciated see.

* Done by Weeks & Hughes of Tunbridge Wells. This might suggest that Salomons had been involved (Hughes later worked on the Stables at Broomhill - see above), though it may just be that the owner at the time - William Winch - knew the builders through his business partner, Francis Peek (they were tea importers). Peek had worked with them in Tunbridge Wells, eg on the Royal Kentish Hotel.

49 Grosvenor Street (contd)

In the earlier 1880s the house had been taken for the season by the Duke of Marlborough (1881)*, Lord and Lady Mowbray (1883), and the Earl of Cawdor (1885); and that was how it was used by the Salomons. They were recorded in April 1889, for example, leaving Broomhill for their London residence 'for the season'.**

So the house was mainly used for entertaining and for display. The museum has menu cards from formal dinners given there - typically midweek in June and early July. Favourite dishes seem to have been roast lamb and chicken, with quail, duckling and lobster mousse. And a catalogue see records more than 300 works of art on display. Most of these were oil-paintings and water-colours, three-quarters of them bought from the previous owner; but there was also a pair of lace panels, given to Jeannette Salomons by Queen Marie Amelie of France, and eight halberts (bought by David Lionel).

In 1916 it was handed over for war service and used, for at least part of the time, by the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps.

* One might have expected the Duke of Marlborough to have had his own Mayfair property, but that's what the Morning Post reported on 5th April.

** That was in a local paper. There is a further source of information: David Lionel monitored electricity usage at Broomhill in daily diaries, and noted when the family were away - usually mid-April to early August.

47 Montagu Square, and back to Grosvenor Street

After the war the Salomons took 47 Montagu Square as their London home. It was a slightly smaller house, in Marylebone rather than Mayfair, not far from Gt Cumberland Place (see map above). Little is known about their use of it - Maud and her husband are recorded there late in 1925, but little else. On his death in 1925, David Lionel left it to Laura for her lifetime, but it is not clear how long she kept it.

Apart from Maud, there was little need for a London house - Ethel and Vera were living abroad. Writing her will in the 1960s, Vera made it very clear that she was not resident in the UK. She occasionally visited though, and needed some sort of base. And, in a neat little twist, 49 Grosvenor St comes back into the story.

The Sesame Club was what one would call a 'gentlemen's club' except that it was mainly known for its women members. It moved into 49, Grosvenor St in the 1920s. Perhaps its best-known member was Edith Sitwell. Vera was also a member.* It was there, in a large private drawing room upstairs that she met Malcolm Brown in 1965 to discuss the catalogue he was preparing of the mementoes at Broomhill.

* It merged with other women's clubs: the Pioneer and Imperial see. During WW2 the premises, particularly the mews buildings in Mount St., were also used by a club for members of the RAF. Vera seems to have had other clubs too - in 1955 she was staying at the Curzon House Club in Curzon St.