Lynford Hall
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Lynford Hall is a neo-Jacobean country house in the English county of Norfolk. It is now an hotel.
The house was built in 1871 by William Burne for the banker, Stephen Lyne-Stephens, the wealthiest commoner in the country at the time. He was married to the glamorous French ballerina, Pauline Duvernay.
Regular guests included Joe Kennedy, then the United States ambassador to the United Kingdom. He was often accompanied on his visits by his sons Joe Jr., John and Robert. Ernest Hemingway is said to have propped up Lynford's Royal Wellingtonia bar with Sir James Calder, in the 1930s. Calder was the United Kingdom ambassador to the United States at the time.
Hemingway described shooting on the estate as "like sucking the core out of a fig."[1] It is noteworthy that Hemingway's gradual decline into madness began soon after he left Norfolk for the last time.
Lynford has been an hotel for some years now and has been described by A.C. Grayling as "the Cliveden of the East".[2]
[edit] Notes
- ^ From the now defunct Ipswich Courier, 13th May 1932, available on microfiche in the Ipswich Public Record Office
- ^ From his book 'On the Meaning of Leisure', OUP 1992
