ONE DAY IN 1885, The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, suggested to Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford and chatelaine of Highcliffe Castle, that the place should go to a certain member of her husband's family, after her death. Lady Waterford respectfully demurred. Highcliffe, she explained to His Royal Highness, was 'a Stuart place'.

It had been a Stuart place since 1770, or thereabouts, when Lady Waterford's great-grandfather, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, on a botanical expedition, found himself on the cliff-top overlooking Christchurch Bay, and was charmed by the scene before him. The story is that he decided, there and then, to make his home there, and that he would not leave the spot until Robert Adam, the architect, arrived to begin work on his project. He called his new house High Cliff.

Lord Bute's fourth and favourite son, Lieutenant-General the Honourable Sir Charles Stuart, inherited High Cliff, but he was forced by landslips to demolish the house, and he chose to sell the greater part of the estate. Years later, however, General Stuart's elder son, Lord Stuart de Rothesay, bought back the land that had been sold, and built the house that became known as Highcliffe Castle.

Each chapter features a member of the Stuart family who lived at this estate in Highcliffe including General Charles Stuart, Lady Waterford and Major General the Honorable Edward Stuart Wortley.

© Robert Franklin 1998

ISBN 9781897887172

128 Pages, Hardback