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Articles
THE FOOTSTEPS SERIES
In These Signs Conquer
Revealing the secret signs an Age has obscured
by Ellis Taylor
Astrotheologist and writer, Michael Tsarion:
"Written in a forthright, unshy and conversational style, the subject matter is treated humorously and seriously, and exposes us to many novel facts that have been quite buried for an age. If you enjoy learning about words, and language, numerology and folklore, mythology and cosmology, and if you are simply searching for new ways of looking at the world in which you live, this book will be of significance in your life." more
INTRODUCTION TO ARTICLES Please read before proceeding
Pokin' 'round Cliveden
Part 2
The Sutherlands
The odious Sutherlands' inhuman treatment of their tenants in the early 1800's is permanently etched in the Scottish memory. During this time, although the family was raking enormous profits from its coalmining and industrial predation, they decided that their Scottish dependants were a drain on their resources - so they kicked them out. With nowhere to go many were forced to emigrate, mainly to America.But this policy seems to have originated with George Granville 3rd Earl Gower. Not content with his wife's dowry of virtually the whole County of Sutherland. Not long after this vile escapade in 1833, his son upon succeeding to the dukedom, wrote to his mother:" We are all so well off that there can be no cause of uneasiness in any respect to any of our worldly goods, of which there is such a plentiful abundance."The family surname is Leveson - Gower but in common with many of these aristocratic Hyacinth Bouquet's (Bucket's) the name is pronounced 'funny'. You have to say Looson - Gore. An American politician by the name of Al Gore has a close friend called Frank Sutherland, editor of the Tennessean newspaper.). Looson -Leveson is possibly 'Sons of Levi'. (who were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari?)Anyway back to Cliveden...
In 1849 George Granville's son George, the 4th Earl Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland bought Cliveden for his wife Harriet Howard, paying £30,000 - including nearly 10 grands worth of furniture and pictures.No mind that at this time George was edging towards financial embarrasment, as they say, due to his own and his wife's zealous building mania. His gestapo-model chancellor and lawyer, James Loch, who had overseen the displacement of the Duke's tenants, was dead set against it and issued dire warnings against making the purchase.In 1849, the same year L.Gore bought it, and Cliveden burnt down again. Of course it wasn't the owners fault this time either. The blame was immediately put on the decorators. The day of the fire (Thursday 15th November) was a national thanksgiving holiday called to mark the ending of a cholera epidemic that had killed 13,000 Londoners between June and October. The fire took hold whilst the saintly family and their staff were at church. The Duke, it is said, was much annoyed that the fire was not spotted earlier. A national holiday? No excuse for the blasted builders to have a day orff , what?The blame was quickly shifted from the decorators (because they weren't there) to the builders (who weren't there either), but plan - sorry, reason 'b' was that the builders left a joist protruding into the fireplace which caught alight.One of the first to spot the fire was some nosey woman from Windsor, Victoria somebody or other. The Sutherlands hadn't paid any premiums on their insurance but surprise, surprise they were covered.The new house, which took two years to build, is by perhaps some remarkably good fortune, the same one we see today. It ended up costing a great deal more than the insurance money though, due to the Duke's wife's fervent expenditure. In 1850 the Duke was ruefully admitting that he wished it had been Stafford House (his house) rather than Cliveden (which he had presented to his wife) that had ashed: 'the saving in running costs would have been great' .The architect who was commissioned to rebuild Cliveden was Charles Barry - who also designed the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament). The Duke tried to dodge paying Barry for a couple of years... well 7, if we want to be pedantic about it.
The Duke payed up eventually but, because of the cheek of the man, the Duke left instructions that should Sir Charles (who was knighted in 1852) call he was not to be admitted.This didn't stop the Leveson-Gowers and new architect, Henry Clutton from nicking Barry's (watch) tower design (which he had used at Trentham - another of L. Gore's houses) to use for a water tower. (Completed in 1861) But this tower became a monument to the 2nd duke because on 28th February 1861 he died.The water/watch/bell tower at Cliveden
Following the old man's death, Harriet remained at Cliveden, but she was also given the run of Chiswick House by her cousin and brother-in-law, the Duke of Devonshire. The Duchess died in 1868, but during her widowhood she entertained Tennyson, Gladstone, Sir Joseph Paxton, Marochetti and Garibaldi. Queen Victoria was amused at Cliveden in the early summer of 1866. In April 1852 George's daughter, Lady Constance, who was Queen Victoria's favourite, had married Hugh Lupus (meaning wolf), Earl Grosvenor, at Cliveden. After the old Duch had died her son the 3rd Duke flogged Cliveden to them.The Grosvenors
With the purchase of Cliveden by Lupus (The Cloven den by the wolf?) in 1868 the name on the deeds changed but in reality the Sutherlands and the Grosvenors were (are) so connected by marriage the house remained in the same hands. In fact Earl Grosvenor's wife, the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, had grown up at Cliveden. Hugh Lupus' own mother, Elizabeth was the second child of George Granville Leverson - Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland. The Grosvenors called Cliveden home throughout the 1870's whilst their main residence, Eaton in Cheshire, underwent £600,000 worth of rebuilding.Grosvenor employed Henry Clutton to see to a few improvements around the place but he had at the same time to completely remodel the state rooms at Grosvenor House in Park Lane.In Gladstone's Dissolution Honours of 1874, Grosvenor was created Lord Westminster.In 1880, Grosvenor's horse, Bend' Or won the Derby but that same year, in December, Constance died, aged 45. In 1882 he married Katherine, the youngest daughter of Lord Chesham, who at 24 was half his age.In 1886 Lord Westminster had Sir Robert Edis design and set about a 'Flemish Renaissance' style remodelling of the east wing of Cliveden. It was to be balanced by the same treatment to the west wing but in 1893 he decided to sell Cliveden to an American. Much to Her Majesty's displeasure:"...it is grievous to think of it falling into these hands!" 'These hands' belonged to William Waldorf Astor.
The Astors
It is claimed that this family is one of the 13 Illuminati bloodlines. Here
In 1783 aged 20, John Jacob Astor I had left his home in the village of Walldorf in Germany and travelled to London. Staying only a short while in Great Britain he moved on to New York where a fur trader gave him work. In a short while he started up on his own. The 1830's saw Astor as the owner of the two biggest concerns on the continent, namely the American Fur Company and the Pacific Fur Company. He had also accumulated a grasping property portfolio in New York. The family continued to prosper and became enormously wealthy. Considering the c.v.'s of the former owners of Cliveden, the Astor family were naturals for the place. Like the Sutherlands, the Astors showed little regard for the welfare of their tenants. Their squalid, rat-infested tenament buildings in New York were home to many unfortunates who frequently died of ill-health but the Astor's cared little, if at all.The new purchaser was the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor I and the only child of John Jacob Astor III. William Waldorf Astor
William Waldorf Astor had married Mary Dahlgren Paul in 1878 and 4 years later they had moved to Rome for Bill to carry on...sorry, the duties of the US ambassador. Here he began a life-long interest in ancient sculpture and art, using his knowledge to write two fictional novels, 'Valentino' and 'Sforza' and a book of short stories, Pharaoh's Daughter. Before shelling out for Cliveden Astor initiated the family's British press galaxy with the purchase of the Pall Mall Gazette in 1892.In 1894, not for the first time , the lady of Cliveden died at a young age. Mary was 36.One of Astors first projects was to enclose the whole estate with a wall, much to the chagrin and suspicion of locals.'' Waldorf by name and walled-orff by nature.' they moaned.Another was the demolition of the Duke of Westminster's east wing 'Tudor aberation'. He engaged the services of Truro Cathedral architect, John Loughborough Pearson ( a man in his mid-seventies) to work on Cliveden and his Victoria Embankment offices (2 Temple Place). Pearson's son Frank, re-designed Leoni's Octagon Temple (Built for Lord Orkney in 1735 on the banks of the Thames to the south-west of the house) converting it into a family chapel.William Astor commissioned some striking work at the Cloven-den, which included W. S. Frith's historical wood-carvings and the placement of the imported ballustrade, which was spirited from the Villa Borghese in Rome. 
The travertine and brick tile ballustrade from the Villa Borghese, Rome by Guiseppe Di Giacomo and Paulo Massini. Comissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese.in 1618-19, they feature the House of Borghese Eagles and Dragons and what could possibly be the demon Asmodeus.
