Latest news with #BelvoirCastle
Daily Mail
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Lady Violet Manners' high society wedding descends into party mode - as bride dons sequin dress and trainers to dance on tables after tying the knot to her 'Caledonian Cowboy'
One of high society's most popular weddings of 2025 descended into party mode with disco balls, dancing on tables and drinks aplenty this weekend - as Lady Violet Manners tied the knot to William James Lindesay-Bethune, also known as Viscount Garnock. Attendees at the nuptials, which took place at the stunning historic Belvoir Castle, documented how the festivities saw the bride sporting sequins among other revellers at the 15,000-acre ancestral property's 'basement'. The idyllic sunlight of the day ceremony turned into red strobe lighting as guests sipped on champagne and smoked cigarettes well into the night. Videos from well past midnight saw the bride and groom jumping up and down to adoring crowds while music played. Violet, 31, swapped out her traditional ensemble to a festive bridal minidress, fit with tassels and shiny silver beading. The heels came off - replaced by comfortable trainers - as her hair came down from its sophisticated updo. Her sisters - Eliza, 27, and Alice, 30 - both also swapped out their elegant, dusky pink day dresses for party-worthy form-fitting gown. Lady Violet, 31, said 'I do' with Viscount Garnock, 33, in a service that brings together two of Britain's most prominent aristocratic families together. The eldest daughter of The Duke and Duchess of Rutland, David Manners, the 11th Duke of Rutland, and Emma Manners, had announced her engagement to colourful Scottish aristocrat William last summer in a post that read 'I said "yes" to my Caledonian Cowboy'. William is the son and heir of the 16th Earl of Lindsay, and is based both in Scotland and Texas in the U.S. He is also co-founder of a low and no alcohol spirits brand. On Saturday, in bright sunshine, the couple were wed at St Mary The Virgin Church in Bottesford with the bride looking resplendent in a Phillipa Lepley couture gown. Lady Violet wore a family heirloom for her big day, donning the diamond Rutland tiara, which has been part of her lineage for more than 300 years, and hasn't been worn at a public occasion since the late 90s. The bride wore her brunette hair pinned back, with a flowing veil behind the tiara. The diadem has carnation and fuschias, with diamond leaves; the last member of the family to wear it was Lady Theresa Manners on her wedding day in 1997 to Dr John Chipman. Lady Violet's bridal gown had puffed sleeves, and a delicate sheer panel under her ruffled neckline which was embroidered with symbols including stars and love hearts. Later, she changed into a second ensemble comprising of a flowing ivory gown, teamed with a striking lace cape veil. In some snaps the bride could be seen wearing it atop her head, as a hood. The idyllic countryside background quickly turned to strobe lighting and disco balls as the party got underway Some scenes from the weekend, Violet was also pictured in a ruffled white frock with cowboy boots. Meanwhile, the groom was attired in a kilt made from the red and green Lindsay family tartan, which he wore with a traditional sporran and a pale grey suit with a green and blue patterned tie. He arrived at the church in true, characterful style, disembarking with family and friends from vintage red double decker Routemaster bus as he awaited his bride. Acknowledging the groom's Scottish heritage, a piper played the bride into the church. Lady Violet arrived in a closed carriage, meanwhile, with her bridesmaids riding alongside her. The bridesmaids' stylish sartorial choices tipped a hat to the bride's Christian name by wearing a pretty shade of violet. They wore their hair tied back and adorned with flowers that co-ordinated with their dresses. Amongst the bridesmaids were Lady Violet's sisters, Eliza and Alice alongside Lady Violet's close friend Devisha Kumari Singh. The happy couple, who announced their engagement last summer, wave at guests and well-wishers after being named man and wife Beautiful bride: Lady Violet looked resplendent in a Phillipa Lepley couture gown on her big day this weekend A summer wedding: The happy couple (and the guests!) were blessed with warm weather on the day, donning summer frocks and sandals The ceremony appeared to leave a smile on many of the guests' faces, with attendees smiling as a photographer took snaps Bring on the brights! Wedding guests wore an array of colourful shades to the summertime nuptials Flower girls and page boys, who were dressed in light green satin knickerbockers, made up the rest of the bridal party. The newlyweds were seen waving at guests and well-wishers as they made their way as man and wife from St Mary The Virgin Church back to Belvoir Castle. Their respective sets of parents, the Duke and Duchess of Rutland and the Earl and Countess of Lindsay, James and Diana Lindesay-Bethune, looked overjoyed as they waved them off. The two couples clearly have a solid friendship, with Diana Lindesay-Bethune, Countess of Lindsay and mother-of-the-groom, and father-of-the-bride David Manners, 11th Duke of Rutland, striding in to the church ceremony together. Mother-of-the-bride Emma Manners, the Duchess of Rutland, 61, who is battling breast cancer after a shock diagnosis in the spring, looked elegant in a jacquard coat and dress in a shade of light pink, and a statement tilted hat. She enjoyed a warm hug with one of Lady Violet's flower girls as the wedding party emerged from the church. The cream of high society made up the guests at the stately home nuptials, with Lady Tatiana Mountbatten, Lady Sabrina Percy and Princess Alexandra's granddaughter Flora Vesterberg, all in attendance. The 11th Duke of Rutland's ancestors have resided for almost 1,000 years at Belvoir Castle so it was unlikely the couple would have deviated from the 360-room estate. The historic property was used as Windsor Castle in Netflix series The Crown.
Telegraph
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Lady Violet Manners marries her ‘Caledonian cowboy' in the society wedding of the year
It's been dubbed one of the society weddings of the year, and when Lady Violet Manners tied the knot to William James Lindesay-Bethune on Saturday at her family seat Belvoir Castle, the event lived up to the hype. Wearing a gown with a high, ruffled neckline and puffed sleeves, the sheer panel across her décolletage was embroidered with stars. The skirt was a cascade of ruffles. Violet's hair was styled up to better show off her headpiece – the grand Rutland tiara, which has been in her family since the 18th century. The groom, of Scottish descent, wore a kilt in the Lindsay family tartan, complete with a tasselled sporran. The bridesmaids – dressed in violet, naturally – included the other two Manners sisters, Eliza and Alice, as well as Devisha Kumari Singh. The mother of the bride, Emma Manners, looked resplendent in a pale pink jacquard coat featuring bows at the sleeves, completed by an angled, wide-brimmed hat. Guests included Lady Tatiana Mountbatten, Lady Sabrina Percy and Princess Alexandra's granddaughter Flora Vesterberg. With a decadent 360 rooms, there was plenty of space for everyone at the 16,000-acre Leicestershire stately home – a location grand enough to pass for Windsor Castle in the Netflix show The Crown. Violet, 31, is the eldest of the 11th Duke of Rutland's five children and one third of what society magazine Tatler dubbed high society's 'most glamorous set of sisters' – a group whose party-girl reputations once earned them the lighthearted nickname 'the bad-manners sisters.' Often likened to the Kardashians for their fondness for sharing their lifestyles on social media, Violet's marriage to Bill, 34, son of the 16th Earl of Lindsay (also known as Viscount Garnock), unites two storied families in what Tatler called a 'family line as illustrious as it is complex.' The Manners family history dates back to 1066 and includes 36 successive generations of Dukes and Duchesses. The title of Earl of Lindsay has been part of the Scottish peerage since 1633, but the family's aristocratic roots stretch back to the Norman Conquest. 'The wedding of Lady Violet Manners to Viscount Garnock officially kicks off high society wedding season,' says Tatler features director Eilidh Hargreaves. 'To be followed by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's Venice nuptials and Zac Goldsmith and Hum Fleming's Cotswolds wedding later this summer […] Just like Zac and Hum, this marks the coming together of two dynasties.' The nuptials, announced last July, came as a 'surprise' to many, says one insider, who revealed that many of Lady Violet's friends had yet to meet Bill before their engagement was announced via Instagram. Featuring a picture of the pair in front of Colorado's Rocky Mountains, with a ring on Lady Violet's engagement finger, her caption read: 'I said 'yes' to my Caledonian Cowboy.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Violet Manners (@mannersviolet) While at the time Violet's mother, Emma, Duchess of Rutland, 61, said she was 'over the moon' at the news, David, the 66-year-old Duke of Rutland, told diarist Richard Eden only that he had 'met him [Bill] a couple of times.' The three Manners sisters have been regulars on the London scene. Prior to dating Bill, Lord Garnock; former Dolce & Gabbana model Lady Violet was in a relationship with Old Etonian banker Ted Morrison, which reportedly ended in 2022 – the same year her sister Alice, 30, split from Otis Ferry, son of rock star Bryan Ferry. Eliza, 27, the youngest Manners daughter, has been linked to Max Odey, son of millionaire hedge fund boss Crispin Odey. Despite being heralded by Tatler as one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, 24-year-old Charles – who will eventually inherit the Belvoir estate by virtue of male primogeniture, even though all his sisters are older – and his brother Hugo, 21, are less often in the public eye. The Duchess of Rutland has certainly been on board with Violet's wedding preparations, using social media to document accompanying her eldest on a mother-daughter pre-wedding trip to the island of Formentera at the start of the month and running a daily countdown to the estate's forthcoming celebrations on her Instagram account, including a spot of mother-of-the-bride dress shopping in the capital. Entrepreneurial Lady Violet recently launched HeritageXplore, a digital platform facilitating access to Britain's independently run stately homes and historic houses. For his part, Lord Garnock graduated from the University of Alabama in 2014 and left behind a job in the American drinks industry to return to his family seat, the Jacobean Lahill House in Fife, founding the luxury non-alcoholic botanical spirit brand Feragaia – stocked in Fenwicks, Harrods and elsewhere. One can expect drinks of all denominations to be flowing freely at Belvoir into the early hours of tomorrow morning, as both the family – and the venue – possess immaculate party-throwing pedigree. The nightclub known as 'Dadabells,' found in the dining room, has hosted several celebrations with disco balls and DJ booths, including the 2022 'three-day bacchanal' wedding of Vogue beauty editor Tish Weinstock to Tom Guinness, with guests including Kate and Lila Moss, Sabine and Ivy Getty and the Manners sisters themselves. 'Parties at Belvoir are legendary,' confirms Hargreaves. 'There are tales of disco balls in the Old Kitchen, saxophonists and DJ sets rolling on until 8am. And, having won the 'best silverware' category in Tatler 's Country House Awards, the wedding breakfast will surely sparkle.' The sisters especially love leaning into a theme. 'Lady Violet's Wild West–themed hen do was a case in point, inspired by her fiancé's nickname 'Caledonian Cowboy',' says Hargreaves. ''Vi's Last Rodeo,' as it was called, was hosted at Moscar Lodge in Sheffield (another of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland's properties) and featured chandeliers, tartan gowns, cowboy hats, spa treatments […] and a health workshop with crystals. This is how the modern gentry roll.' So far, so modern – although Violet is expected to take her husband's surname, having previously told The Telegraph of her 'enormous respect for tradition' and her loathing of the word 'woke,' adding, 'For me, the old tradition of taking your husband's surname still rings true.' 'Everyone grows up with this image […]' Lady Violet told Town & Country magazine earlier this year, when asked whether her life in a castle was like a fairytale. 'We all put on the princess dresses when we're younger, we all love the Disney movies, and we were no different. [But growing up at Belvoir] was actually quite scary.' It seems that now, though, Lady Violet has found her prince.
Daily Mail
16-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- Daily Mail
Nicky Haslam reveals the 'tacky' garden item ruining your outdoor space - and what you should use instead
Interior designer and socialite Nicky Haslam has named the one garden item he considers truly tacky - and it's not your plant choices. According to the famously outspoken tastemaker, it's modern, matching furniture sets that are ruining outdoor spaces across the country. The green-thumbed enthusiast, whose London-based studio has designed glamorous interiors around the world, believes today's sleek patio sets look more like airport seating than something you'd want in a garden. 'Nothing looks more horrible in winter than furniture with covers over it,' he told the Telegraph. Now in his 80s, Nicky is as opinionated as ever when it comes to what's tasteful and what isn't - publishing his infamous 'What Nicky Haslam Finds Common' tea towel annually. Recent entries have included 'strawberries', 'remote-controlled lawnmowers', and 'music', but his garden gripes are particularly exacting. Nicky has no time for coordinated outdoor sets or synthetic-looking materials, and instead prefers a more eclectic, characterful approach. Lloyd Loom woven furniture is, in his words, 'definitely too common'. His own ideal setup features classic wooden or wrought-iron benches and sofas, dressed in thick mattresses, throws and a generous scattering of cushions. For fabrics, Nicky favours timeless stripes, especially green and white. He recalls a particularly chic example of garden elegance from a visit to Belvoir Castle with the late socialite Diana Cooper. There, old cane benches were lined with black chintz cushions patterned with oversized red roses - a look he calls 'so chic'. Nicky is also a fan of mixing indoor and outdoor elements, though only when done with style. An outdoor bench in a hallway or trellis on an interior wall can bring charm, but dragging your dining chairs outside is a step too far. It's a flair for style he's honed since his school days. While a pupil at Eton, Nicky transformed his study with faux ocelot curtains, cardboard ostrich plumes, artificial grass from a local greengrocer and carriage lamps. A dramatic photograph of James Dean completed the look - so impressive that his house master would bring guests to see it after dinner. From Eton schoolboy to international designer, he has always had an eye for the fabulous, and a sharp tongue for the faux-pas. If your garden furniture came as a matching set, you may want to rethink. The socialite also said yellow garden flowers are 'tacky', and lower the esteem of your back yard space. And it's not the first time the designer has been outspoken about plant selection. Nicky has in past said he cannot stand red roses in the garden - along with other plants such as berberis, rhododendrons, sunflowers and conifers. He also relegated red hot pokers, aubretia, and copper beeches to gardening purgatory. Red roses are acceptable when picked and displayed in a vase, Haslam added, making a design concession for the flowers widely associated with romance, passion, and devotion. He also highlighted that, while plants can help set the mood in your garden, it is important to consider how they are arranged - not just what kinds of plants you have growing. Instead of letting your plants grow recklessly in a wild garden that Haslam deems 'quite boring', the furniture designer and socialite recommended informally organising them into large groups. Some of his favourite plants include the stinking iris, that can be found blooming in Britain all-year round, white foxgloves, white pansies, and the Stokes' aster 'White Star'. While Nicky adores white flowers, he recommends steering clear of yellow-coloured blooms.
Times
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Times
Wrongly accused of child murder, he's still seeking justice 10 years on
While Harvey Proctor is trying not to cry, I'm trying not to be sick. The 78-year-old former Conservative MP is driving us, very jerkily, down winding country lanes to his home on the Belvoir Castle estate in Leicestershire and recalling how he was falsely accused of child murder and sex abuse ten years ago. 'Please ignore me if I get emotional,' he says, welcoming me into the cottage he shares with his partner, Terry. The house comes with the job: Proctor is private secretary to the Duke of Rutland, who lives alongside his ex-wife, the Duchess of Rutland, in the 356-room castle down the road. Hardly cheek by jowl. It is 11.15am, so I decline my host's offer of an alcoholic drink. Proctor, who was once described by Private Eye as 'so far-right as to be somewhere in the North Sea', is dressed head to toe in shades of Tory blue. We have tea in his book-lined sitting room. Through the windows are bucolic views of the Vale of Belvoir. It was in this tranquil setting that Proctor's life was ripped apart. Early on March 4, 2015, about 20 Metropolitan Police officers, mostly in blue forensic uniforms, stormed the modest farmhouse. 'I assumed it was something to do with the castle,' Proctor recalls. He quickly learnt that the raid, which lasted late into the night, was part of Operation Midland. Carl Beech, a former NHS paediatric nurse known at that point only by the pseudonym 'Nick', had accused Proctor and others — including the former home secretary Leon Brittan, the former armed forces chief Lord Bramall and the former prime minister Edward Heath — of operating a murderous VIP paedophile sex ring in Westminster in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Carl Beech, the fantasist who was known by the pseudonym 'Nick' PA Unfolding in the dark shadow of the Jimmy Savile scandal, the sensational tale was swallowed whole by the authorities and a classic moral panic ensued. Beech, from Gloucestershire, a divorced father of one, accused Proctor of rape, the murder of two children and being involved in the murder of a third child. He also alleged that Proctor had threatened to cut his genitals off with a penknife. It turned out that Beech, 57, was a complete fantasist. He is now in prison serving an 18-year sentence for perverting the course of justice and fraud. He was also found to have more than 300 indecent images of children on his computers. Operation Midland, which cost £2.5 million, lasted for 16 months and ended in 2016 with lives left in ruins and without a single arrest. To Proctor's understandable fury, not a single officer involved has faced any consequences. 'Bernard Hogan-Howe [the head of the Met at the time of Operation Midland] was ennobled,' he says. 'Cressida Dick [who was referred to the police watchdog, the IOPC — Independent Office of Police Conduct — over her role but found to have no case to answer] was made a dame. Steve Rodhouse [who led the inquiry] was made No 2 at the National Crime Agency. Lower ranks were promoted.' Proctor had hoped this month he might finally see some accountability. Rodhouse faced a misconduct hearing to answer claims that he used 'inaccurate and dishonest words' at the conclusion of Operation Midland. On June 5, however, the IOPC unexpectedly dropped the misconduct hearing at the 11th hour. It said the decision came after a 'large volume of relevant material was recently disclosed to it' by the Met. 'It is cowardice. It is complicity. It is a cover-up,' Proctor says of the U-turn. Brittan's widow, Lady Brittan, was similarly appalled when the hearing turned to dust, telling the BBC: 'I feel that it would have at least put a closure … on the whole episode if somebody had been held to account, either for misconduct, or even for incompetence.' Brittan died before his name was cleared. The apparent lack of consequences for his tormentors clearly weighs heavily on Proctor. 'It is an open wound because it's not scarred over. It's still open, it still hurts,' he says, sinking further into a brown leather armchair. 'Never a day goes by without thinking about what happened. Not a day.' A decade ago, at his solicitor's office, Proctor learnt the gruesome details of the accusations levelled against him. 'What's so horrible is the thought that anyone, let alone the police, thought I could conceivably have done anything that this chap was suggesting,' he says. The morning after his home was raided, he woke to see his face leading the morning news bulletins on television. He said it was a horrifying 'flashback' to 1987 and the first time his life had been cruelly upended. In 1986, when Proctor was the Tory MP for Billericay, the Sunday People newspaper carried out a sting, paying a 19-year-old male prostitute to visit his flat. At the time the legal age of consent for gay people was 21. Proctor was charged with gross indecency in 1987 and forced to abandon his political career. 'It takes quite a while to recover from something like that,' he says quietly. After a stint selling shirts in Richmond upon Thames, he left London and built a new life working for the 11th Duke of Rutland, David Manners. During the second unravelling, in 2015, he was accused of heinous crimes and had to leave both his job at Belvoir Castle and his grace-and-favour home. 'You have school groups going around, you couldn't have somebody working there who — not only the allegation had been made by somebody that I'd sexually abused children and murdered children, but the Metropolitan Police had gone on TV and radio and confirmed that [detectives considered Beech's account to be] 'credible and true',' he says. Throughout our day together, Proctor's pale blue eyes fill with tears and his voice keeps catching. 'The way that juries believe police, I genuinely thought that I could be charged, face trial and be found guilty and spend the rest of my life in prison,' he says. Inevitably, he received death threats — and still receives the occasional one today. 'I know some of the people who made the death threats,' he says. Fearing for his safety, in mid-2015 he moved to live in Spain at a friend's villa with Terry, a retired art dealer, whom he has known for more than 50 years. During that year, late into the Spanish nights, Proctor wrote his book, Credible and True, in a frantic attempt to document his innocence. He voluntarily flew back for police interviews and, in August 2015, against the advice of his lawyers, he held an extraordinary press conference at St Ermin's Hotel in Westminster. 'I am a homosexual. I am not a murderer. I am not a paedophile,' he told the packed room of journalists, who were agog. It was a brave and shrewd move; the tide started to shift and the press began to scrutinise the tales of 'Nick'. In 2016, as the inquiry dragged on, Proctor moved back to the UK. 'We had no money, we had nowhere to live,' he recalls. 'A friend let us use her garden shed to live in. Terry, me and three dogs lived in a garden shed half the size of this room,' he says, gesturing around the small sitting room. Proctor pictured himself living homeless on the streets of nearby Grantham. When the accusations first came out in 2015, some friends abandoned him, never to return; others abandoned him and later, when the truth emerged, came crawling back. He still can't work out which is worse. Other friends were loyal and supportive, 'without which you wouldn't survive'. Over a homemade lasagne, I hear how Proctor grew up in Scarborough, and his father, who ran bakeries, abandoned the family for another woman. He never forgave him and didn't go to his funeral. After graduating from York University, Proctor served as the Conservative MP for Basildon, then Billericay, between 1979 and 1987, and advocated for the voluntary repatriation of immigrants. His political hero is Enoch Powell. Proctor, by his own description, is not a clubbable man. Why does he think he was targeted by Beech? 'What happened in 1987 was definitely a factor,' he says. 'He went to journalists and I think they probably exacerbated his allegations. Thirdly, I was a homosexual and I've described [the inquiry] by the Met as a homosexual witch-hunt.' In November 2019, Proctor received nearly £900,000 in compensation and costs from the Metropolitan Police. In early 2022, he resumed working for the duke. 'No two days are the same,' he says cheerily. Slowly piecing himself back together, he has had therapy and now preaches the importance of talking things through. He is rejoining the Conservative Party and is president of the clunkily named Facing Allegations in Contexts of Trust (Fact), an organisation that advises those who have been falsely accused of abuse. He has had students, politicians and police come to him in desperation. 'I don't want anybody else to go through what I and others went through,' Proctor says. 'I try to help by talking to them, trying to reassure them and trying to establish what I lost, and that is confidence.' He feels only 'icy contempt' for his accuser, and seems to have more anger for the former director of public prosecutions (DPP), one Sir Keir Starmer, under whose five-year tenure rape convictions rose. He stepped down as DPP in October 2013, more than a year before Operation Midland was launched. Proctor says: 'He didn't like the fact that there [weren't] sufficient numbers of successful rape convictions, so he told the police wherever they would listen — and they did a lot, to a DPP — that 'henceforth you should believe the victim'. He wasn't DPP at the time of Operation Midland — he didn't need to be. The damage he'd done had already been done.' Proctor proudly shows me Belvoir Castle's art collection — Gainsborough, Holbein, Stubbs, Reynolds — and tells me about a foiled burglary last year. On the surface, his life seems comfortably back on track. But after everything — the accusations, raid, threats, homelessness and prospect of life in prison — does he live looking over his shoulder? 'I try not to but I think it's inevitable. Things can get quite difficult,' he says, his voice cracking again. 'But not everything has been doom and gloom. I've had a remarkable life. And here we are, ten years later. I'm still here.'
