John Goodall looks at the early evolution of Madresfield Court, Worcestershire — the home of Lucy and Jonathan Chenevix-Trench — to tell the tale of a place that has descended in the hands of one family for more than 900 years.
On June 19, 1798, a 97-year-old bachelor, William Jennens, died at Acton Place, Suffolk. A report of his death in the Gentleman’s Magazine for July that year described him as a man ‘more given to penuriousness than hospitality’ and…