Lucinda Lambton

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The Lady Lucinda Worsthorne (born 10 May 1943, Newcastle upon Tyne), better known as Lucinda Lambton, is a British writer, photographer and broadcaster. Working both behind and in front of the lens; nosing out historic and architectural flights of fancy, laced through with revelations that set out to give astonishment, interest, laughter and delight!

She has researched, written and presented some fifty seven films for the BBC as well as approximately twenty five for ITV. They include:

On The Throne — The History of the Lavatory;
The Great North Road — the architectural wonders from Edinburgh to London;
A Cabinet of Curiosities — of strange collections — such as jewels made from the thighs of flies — that were the foundations of Britain’s Museums;
The Other House of Windsor - the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s house in Paris.

Her films are regularly shown on BBC Worldwide.

Four films for ITV on the architectural and historic delights to be found in London’s suburbs; entitled Sublime Suburbia, won the Regional Television’s award for the best documentary series of 2003, as well as the nomination for the best Television Presenter. A further series of Sublime Suburbia in six parts, was made celebrating the suburbs of London and the home counties .

She was the subject of BBC Favourite Things one of six half hour portraits — including one of Lady Thatcher. She has written and taken the photographs for nine books including:

Temples of Convenience — the best selling, thrice revised history of the lavatory;
Beastly Buildings — on architectural splendours for animals, such as a Grecian temple for pigs and castles for doves, guinea pigs, deer and salmon;
Vanishing Victoriana — on the all too often still desperately undervalued oddities of 19th century architecture;
An Album of Curious Houses and Lucinda Lambton’s A-Z of Britain — the best selling elaboration of the twenty six television programmes for the BBC.
Old New World — the old-fashionedness of America was published to coincide with three hour long television programmes of the same name, showing, through architecture, how the New World is now, in many respects, more old fashioned than the Old.

In Lambton with a p, Lucinda goes to America to find her roots, and ragingly romantic roots they turned out to be; including three signatories of the Declaration of Independence; one of whom went on to make The Louisiana Purchase. She found Princess Pocahontas was her seven times great grandmother; and that Mark Twain’s mother was a Lampton; his cousin William Lampton was the inspiration for Huckleberry Finn — a particularly extraordinary revelation, as unknowing of all of this, Lucinda had called her son Huckleberry 32 years before! On either of William Lampton’s grave in Mississippi, lie his wife Lucinda and his daughter Lucy Lampton.

She gives talks — with or without her own slides — throughout the British Isles, and in America; for the National Arts Collection Fund at the Royal Geographical Society, as well as the annual talks for The National Trust at The Royal Festival Hall. She also speaks aboard The Queen Elizabeth II for The National Trust and The Royal Oak Foundation and she has spoken at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She regularly opens new buildings and museums, as well as hosting architectural and canine prize giving events.

She has made several series for BBC Radio 4, including:

Bringing the House Down — fighting for buildings about to be wrongfully demolished;
Elevations and Revelations — on extraordinary houses;
Pride of Place — set out to lambaste the pestilential pox of modern building that is disfiguring the face of the British Isles.
Hidden Treasures — revealed architectural and historic beauties that are to be found amidst the bland.

She has been the subject of Desert Island Discs. She is a regular contributor to such newspapers and magazines as The Daily Telegraph and Country Life.

She is an Honorary Fellow of The Royal Institute of British Architects and an honorary member of The Chelsea Arts Club, as well as President of the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings. She is also a patron of The Cinema Theatre Association. She is an Honorary Vice President of The Crossness Engines Trust — the Crossness Sewage Works. She is president of the Garden History Society. Lucinda is also patron of the Friends of Houghton Hillside Cemetery, an unusual churchyard in Houghton-le-Spring, Durham, which is located on the site of a former quarry. On the back burner she continues to compile a book on where people of curious note are buried: such as William Oughtred who invented the multiplication sign in the 1600’s; and Ben Caunt the 19th century prize fighter, after whom Big Ben was named.

Discovering the splendours of the British architectural heritage in Jamaica; she took photographs and wrote about these remarkable buildings, as well as making an hour long film, 'Lucinda Lambton’s Jamaican Adventure, for BBC Two . Throughout the island there is a wealth of largely unknown and unloved historic buildings; some of the most beautiful yet forgotten buildings in the world; often deliberately forgotten, for this is a sensationally beautiful legacy that was born out of the sensational evil of slavery. Ravaged by hurricanes and earthquakes and often in dire need of restoration, many of these old buildings are now hanging on for dear life, by the slenderest of bricks and stones. But change is in the air! For Jamaica is on the very cusp of change, with the realisation that they have a remarkable heritage that should be seen and saved, loved and lauded, before it is too late; should be reclaimed as their own; after all, it was built by the skill and sweat of their ancestors.

The House of Teckelden, a book written and painted in 1945 by Denys Dawnay, with the introduction by Lucinda, and the forward by David Hockney, was published in 2005. This is a book that is as curious as it is clever, as rare as it is beautiful; with fantastical musings about the noble yet notorious ancestry of a dachshund, and with parodies of the great masters recording generations of the dogs over the years. From the paintbrushes Van Eyke to Picasso, they all tackled the Teckeldens, and these exquisite parodies of their masterpieces are little masterpieces in themselves.

Temples of Convenience is to be republished in 2007 with updates showing that as our top architects, designers and inventors apply themselves to sanitary design, creating such forms as stainless steel pods and fibre glass eggs, it can be loudly huzzaed that at the turn of the 21st century, there is as great Renaissance in lavatorial design as there was at the turn of the 20th century, when Britain ruled the sanitary waves.

Her book on architecture for animals is also to be republished in 2008, with such stirring additions as the Animals in War Memorial in London.

A recent and passionate crusade is inauguration of The Old Rectory Club, founded by Charles Moore, to foster interest in the history and well-being of rectories, now in unholy hands. With today’s vicar housed in a plastic box and the swells set up in the old rectories, this is an important tale of our times, both architecturally and socially as well as – most importantly of all- spiritually.

A book on the architectural heritage left by the British in Jamaica will be published in 2008.

Her most recent television work was a film on buildings in London that were created on the sugar money of the Caribbean; as well as a programme to save Dollis Hill House — lived in by both Prime Minister Gladstone and Mark Twain — in north London

Lucinda is married to the distinguished journalist Peregrine Worsthorne and lives with him and two dogs in Buckinghamshire. She has two sons by a previous marriage.

Her parents were Anthony Claud Frederick Lambton and Belinda Blew-Jones. At the time of her birth her father was heir to the Earl of Durham, a title he later disclaimed.

Her most renowned work is perhaps Temples of Convenience and Chambers of Delight,on the history of the lavatory, which is to to go into a third edition in November 2007

Lucinda has been married three times: firstly to Henry Harrod in 1965 (divorced 1973), with whom she has two sons, (Henry) Barnaby (b. 1965) (Nathaniel) Huckleberry (b. 1967); secondly to Sir Edmund Ramsay-Fairfax-Lucy, 6th Baronet (b. 1945) in 1986 (divorced 1989); and thirdly to the journalist and social commentator Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, a former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, in 1991. They live in The Old Rectory, Hedgerley, Buckinghamshire.