It's not my story, so I tried to resist...
But I couldn't. Those who have read Bill Bryson's "Notes from a small island" (an account of his journey around Britain in 1994) will probably recognise the following story.

That of W.J.C. Scott-Bentinck.


W.J.C. was the 5th Duke of Portland, and quite possibly eccentricity personified.

He owned an enormous house and estate, but lived for all his life confined to one small set of rooms in the servant's quarters, rarely venturing outside. On those occasions when he did leave his room, should a servant see him they were instructed to pass him by "As though he were a piece of furniture".

Those who ignored this instruction were compelled to skate to exhaustion on the Duke's private skating rink.

He disliked leaving his rooms so intensely that he constructed a second mansion, underneath the first. That's right - he dug over 15 miles of tunnels under his own home. At the peak of the project, over 500 men were working on the underground mansion, which included a ballroom that could hold 2000 people. At that time it was the largest in Europe. A strange thing for a man who never left his rooms or had guests.

If it happened that he had to visit London on business, he would enter his carriage unobserved. It would then be sealed, driven for 2 miles underground to the nearest railway station (through a purpose-built tunnel), loaded onto a special flatcar, taken to London, removed, driven to the Duke's London residence where would he would again remove himself unseen.

After his death, his relatives finally entered the rooms in which he had spent most of his life. They were empty of furniture, mostly painted pink and all were missing the floor, except for two rooms. Room number one contained, in the middle of the floor, a toilet.

Room number two contained several hundred green boxes, stacked in piles. Each box contained a single, dark brown wig.


Talk about tramps and relative all you want, it was the old aristocracy that were the masters of eccentricity...


There may have been more, but I don't have the book with me here...
( MatJ LOOK, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 1:10, Reply)