Latest news with #Malmesbury
The Sun
2 days ago
- The Sun
Princes William and Harry's cousin, 20, found dead with firearm nearby to her
A 20-YEAR-OLD cousin of Princes William and Harry was found dead with a firearm nearby to her, an inquest heard yesterday. Rosie Roche, granddaughter of Princess Diana's uncle, died at her family home on July 14. She was found by her mum and sister after she had been packing to go away with friends. A firearm was found close to her at the property in Norton, near Malmesbury, Wilts. An inquest was opened at Wiltshire and Swindon coroner's court and adjourned until October 25. Area coroner Grant Davies said police 'have deemed the death as non-suspicious and there was no third-party involvement'. Rosie had been studying English Literature at Durham University. A spokeswoman said she 'will be sorely missed'. It come after Thomas Kingston, husband of Harry and William's cousin Lady Gabriella Kingston, died from a head injury, with a gun found nearby, in February 2024. Katy Skerrett, senior coroner for Gloucestershire, had recorded a narrative verdict and said Mr Kingston had taken his own life. Both Rosie's family and a spokesman for Prince William declined to comment last night. 1
BBC News
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Wiltshire festival asks world 'not to forget about Ukraine'
The summer solstice celebration of Ivana Kupala was held in Malmesbury this the wreath making, flower crowns and traditional music, refugees and locals asked the world not to forget about the war in Khotynska fled Ukraine two years ago and said most people are thinking about the "situation in Iran and Gaza" adding "it's really important to remind everybody about Ukraine".For the third year running the group - Malmesbury Stands with Ukraine - organised the Ivana Kupala festival in the grounds of Malmesbury Abbey. Among the traditional Ukrainian songs sang by the Malmesbury Ukrainian Choir was one new song "Flowers of Ivana Kupala" was created after the melody came to local composer, Julian Kay, in a said: "I dreamt of a Slavic-sounding tune and thought this could be useful."Mr Kay gifted it to the Malmesbury Ukrainian choir's lead, Debbie Cambray-Smith, and local Ukrainian, Slava Rubinska, wrote the song is about the Ivana Kupala flower crowns offering hope of happiness in this world.
Telegraph
25-06-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Hollow pledges on defence spending won't make Britain any safer
SIR – Nato leaders are congratulating themselves on having escaped the headmaster's study without a caning, in large part because of a very public commitment to increase defence spending ('Trump hails 'historic milestone'', report, June 25). But we should not be fooled by this. Sir Keir Starmer and his ministers now talk about spending 5 per cent of GDP on 'security'. Of this, 3.5 per cent will be spent on real defence capability – and the rest will go on whatever Whitehall mandarins decide they can say falls under this category. Sir Humphrey would be proud of them. Iain Duffin Malmesbury, Wiltshire SIR – Shrinking our GDP would make the 5 per cent target for defence spending easier to achieve. Could this be the Government's strategy? Keith Macpherson Clevedon, Somerset SIR – Promises to increase defence spending are worthless without a commitment to secure the British economy, which has been severely damaged by successive governments over the past 40 years. Budget deficits have driven up the national debt, putting our children on the hook for today's expenditure and removing the capacity for the country to spend more in the face of a real emergency. This debt crisis must be addressed. In addition, the Government must adopt policies that deliver affordable energy, so that British businesses can be competitive. Until a party seriously commits to sound budgets and cheaper energy, we cannot have faith in promises to secure the country. Ronnie Bradford Vienna, Austria SIR – All the sophisticated weaponry and technology in the world will be of no value if we lack the personnel to use them ('British jets to carry nuclear warheads', report, June 25). The recruitment process, as conducted by civilian contractors, has proved to be a disaster, and must be restored to the individual services. The Combined Cadet Force (CCF) should be rejuvenated, as should all forms of junior entry to the services. Pay and conditions must be improved, and the pervasive nonsense of diversity, equity and inclusion schemes must not be allowed to interfere with recruitment based on merit. The country needs a credible military deterrent, which must be of sufficient strength to ensure that it can meet all threats. The reintroduction of some form of conscription should be considered, and national pride in the Armed Forces must once again be integral to our way of life. The security of the nation is the prime responsibility of any government, and should be prioritised accordingly in all budgetary planning. Mick Richards Malvern, Worcestershire
BBC News
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Fieldview Festival cancelled due to lack of ticket sales
A community music festival - which helped raise money for charity - has been cancelled this year due to low ticket Festival, which described itself as Wiltshire's biggest little music festival, was due to be held over four days from 31 July in Little Somerford, near this month organisers warned that the festival would not run if they did not sell enough tickets. Organisers have said said they are "heartbroken" and anyone who did buy tickets will get a full refund. Beginning in 2007, Fieldview was held 14 times a non-profit, the festival said it had donated £47,000 to local charities and projects over the Cameron, one of the organisers, told the BBC: "We didn't want to think the worst but when you look at the numbers, it's not adding up form the beginning."It's a shame. The energy that went into creating another great weekend went down the drain." He said it showed how many events run on a "shoestring" and how "fine the margins are".The festival said: "It's devastating. Fieldview has always been more than a festival. We've shared 14 Fieldviews together built on love, a community, and friendship. That's something we'll always be proud of."Mr Cameron added: "It was about having as much fun and as much creativity as possible. "We crammed in what we could. We did pretty well for the times that we did it."
Telegraph
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
‘I'll turn everything I can on my 4,500-acre estate into a holiday let'
It has been three years since Alexander Howard, 22nd Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, took over the Charlton Park estate near Malmesbury. He stands proudly in the doorway of the dower house at Charlton, Andover House. Following a lengthy renovation project, Andover House (the former home of the 21st Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, Mickey Howard) now has a new life as an exclusive-use property – yours, self-catered, for a price starting at £5,500 for a three-night stay. Charlton Park has been in the Howard family since 1598; the mansion on the site, a prodigy house, was completed in 1607. Having tried to make it fit for modern life, in 1975, seeing few remaining options, Mickey Suffolk had it converted into flats and moved his family into Andover House. Gone are the old carpeted bathrooms in awkward shapes; now, there's Diptyque soap on every sink and heated floors. The 10 bedrooms and flurry of reception rooms with family portraits around the walls have been reinvented, while an old staff flat off the games room has been transformed into a boutique hideaway suite. Outside in the courtyard, Lord Suffolk has installed a Wi-Fi-controlled fountain. Where the house was damp, now it is dry – 'a lot of money has gone into that,' he says. It has been a labour of love. 'I've tried to make it look like it's not new, but like it's what's always been here,' he says, explaining that help has come in the form of Antiques Roadshow specialist Penny Brittain, and his old nanny, Jo. He is also proud of the new light switches: 'Silver means outside [lights], brass means inside. It's a fastidious system.' Beyond the big house in which he still has a flat – incorporating what was once his grandparents' bedroom – the estate Lord Suffolk inherited was not in good shape. Down from 18,000 acres to 4,500, it came with a motley crew of rundown properties, a pile of debt and a large inheritance tax bill. To pay down his debts and raise funds to cheer up the property portfolio, he has sold a number of houses. Those he has kept will be run as short-term lets rather than as traditional rentals, having had past troubles with tenants: 'I'm trying to make anything I can holiday lets.' There will always be more to do on an estate like Charlton – as soon as he finishes one property, he's on to the next. Alongside the property portfolio, there's an arable and livestock farm to handle, a shoot, a fishing syndicate, and now both a business park using old estate buildings, and a secure dog field, bringing new audiences on to the estate, all part of his plan to transform it into its new era. 'My father was not a commercially astute man and made many mistakes resulting in the continual decline of the estate,' says Lord Suffolk. 'He never had a job, and farming doesn't make enough money – he had to live off selling assets rather than creating wealth.' But he's sanguine about it all. 'It is what it is. If I have to shrink the estate again to make it work, I will do exactly that.' 20th-century trauma The Suffolks are descended from the powerful Howard family whose famous Tudor figurehead Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, was Henry VIII's Lord High Treasurer. His great-grandson, also Thomas Howard, James I's Lord Chamberlain, was created Earl of Suffolk in 1603, and his son, again called Thomas Howard, was created Earl of Berkshire in 1626; the two titles joined in 1745. Imaginably, the now Lord Suffolk has an awful lot of noble antecedents, recent generations of whom have endured more than their fair share of 20th-century trauma. His grandfather Jack inherited the title in 1917, aged 11, after his father Henry Suffolk's death during the First World War. Jack had a difficult relationship with his American mother Daisy, whose inheritance temporarily bankrolled Charlton at the turn of the century. In March 1934, Jack married the actress Mimi Crawford; later that year, Daisy, whether in retaliation or not at the choice her son had made, auctioned off several items from Charlton, forcing him to buy back his inheritance. Mimi and Jack cut their losses and moved to Edinburgh, where Mickey was born in 1935. When the Second World War started, Jack was declared medically unfit for military service and began work for the Ministry of Supply. In May 1941, he was killed defusing a bomb on Erith Marshes, and was subsequently awarded a posthumous George Cross. At the time of his death, Jack hadn't been paid, and Daisy had cancelled his allowance. Mimi's subsequent attempts to gain a war widow's pension were not met with sympathy, the clerks doubting that someone living in a stately home could possibly be in need. Labour's leasehold reforms Upon Jack's death, six-year-old Mickey became the next Lord Suffolk. The family continued on at Charlton for a while, before it was finally thought to be too big, and briefly hosted a girls' school. Mimi died in 1966, and a decade later Charlton underwent conversion to 18 flats. Though it might have saved Charlton, Lord Suffolk is less pleased with the modern reality, since leasehold reforms have made it unlikely that the individual leases will ever revert to the estate. 'If you bought a leasehold flat there, you can now enfranchise the lease back up to 99 years and I can't stop that,' he says. 'We will never get it back, which is a shame because it's not what the contract says.' Emotionally, his succession to the title has not come easily. He found it hard transferring from Viscount Andover, the title he held for 47 years, to the Earl of Suffolk. 'I'm getting there but I did struggle initially with taking on the name of a man to whom I was not particularly close,' he says. He does use the title – not 'as an instrument for deference, but only as an invisible barrier for deflection when I'd rather not be too personally exposed. I find the jump to a Christian name very casual when you are meeting for the first time in the corporate world. I don't like that instant familiarity that can sometimes be thrust upon you.' Charlton comes with a recognisable burden, but one which he accepts. 'I am now the captain of its course and it's my job to make sure it's going in the right direction,' he says. 'My ultimate goal is to pass on to my son Arthur [Viscount Andover], who is 10, the same as I inherited or more. I adore my little boy – he and his sister are my world.' He suspects that his father, one of the original models for Jilly Cooper's famous lothario Rupert Campbell-Black was a product of his unusual childhood. 'Not many people grow up in a house like that,' he says, gesturing out of a window towards the big house. 'In the old days, life was very different for the upper classes, and it obviously did mould my father – not many people have that as their reference of normal.'
