To Partake of Tea

The story of life in a great country house, Kingston Lacy near Wimborne Minster in Dorset, during the last eighty years that it remained in private ownership, from 1897 to 1981. Times of glamour, bereavement, sadness and benevolence are recalled through the eyes of Henrietta Bankes and her daughter-in-law Hilary, the estate’s last influential chatelaines. Geoffrey Brown, a long-term National Trust volunteer at Kingston Lacy, describes life in the house and on the estate, which extended across Dorset to Corfe Castle and the Isle of Purbeck, with great sympathy and understanding, as its owners responded to the social changes of the twentieth century.

To Partake of Tea will delight anyone who has enjoyed visiting Kingston Lacy since its acquisition by the National Trust in 1983, and anyone interested in the predicament faced by owners of other large estates as their role has changed and, in some cases, disappeared.

Reprint of a book first published in 2006