The 'slightly promiscuous' aristocrat who became the First Lady of Rock 'n' ... trends now
AN invitation to Knebworth House was never a humdrum affair. Fellow guests might include the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Queen or Oasis, whose sell-out concerts in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties saw the place immortalised as the stately home of rock 'n' roll.
Even so, there were some strict rules for overnight stays. 'It didn't matter who you might be sharing the bed with, you had to be out of your room by 10am because that's when the velvet rope was back in place and the paying public were let in,' recalls one regular visitor.
'If you were running late, you could stuff everything under the bed and sneak back later.'
This was a rare concession from Knebworth's chatelaine Lady Cobbold, to those unwilling to break off their romantic entanglements until the last possible moment.
For she had to manage the precarious business of keeping the house afloat with a sharp eye on the bottom line, even though it seemed at odds with her fey, hippyish beauty and other-worldly air.
For decades, Chryssie Lytton Cobbold, who has died aged 83, and her late husband David, the 2nd Lord Cobbold, kept the family seat and its 250 acres of parkland afloat with a mixture of flamboyance, optimism and rock 'n' roll.
Lady Cobbold, pictured in 1995, once delicately referred to her marriage to David, the 2nd Lord Cobbold, as 'slight promiscuity'
The dashingly handsome David was reported to have fathered two children with different women
With its creeper-clad turrets and fearsome gargoyles Knebworth House was a crumbling ruin when Chryssie and David took on the task of restoration in 1969
'There was always something leaking, rotting, falling down or needing repair,' says an old friend.
The headlines suggested that it was the music and its reputation for the best-run festivals in the world that ensured Knebworth could pay its bills, but Lady Cobbold's needlework skills were just as vital.
Thanks to her debutante years when she was a £3-a-week pattern cutter at Worth, the London couturiers, she re-upholstered ancient chairs, stitched new curtains and cushions and refurbished old fabrics. And when she wasn't sewing, she was wielding a paintbrush or hacking away at overgrown flower beds.
With its creeper-clad turrets and fearsome gargoyles the house was a crumbling ruin when she and David took on the task of restoration in 1969. His parents had been unable to give it away: 'They offered it to the county council, then a series of public bodies, but they all said they couldn't justify the expense,' Lady Cobbold recalled years later.
The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger in concert at Knebworth in the 1970s
David Lytton-Cobbold and wife Chryssie on skateboards with their children, Peter, Richard and Rosina, at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire
Oasis, pictured, enjoyed sell-out concerts at Knebworth in the 1990s
'One day when we were living in our London flat with our four children, we visited Syon House (home of the Dukes of Northumberland in Brentford). We were very impressed with what they had done so we thought, shall we have a go, too?'
Despite the fears of his father Kim, a former governor of the Bank of England and Lord Chamberlain to the late Queen Elizabeth, that the estate was an impossible burden, the couple set to with gusto, laying roads and building loos and restaurants.
There were
