Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions last time. They were fascinating to read. And I will be restlessly looking forward to whatever you end up posting about Cas and Clanwilliam whenever you get around to it.
So… you've visited Mount Stewart recently hehe. I hope you don't mind if I bother you with a few more questions :D
Firstly, were there any travel items, pieces of furniture, clothing / personal possessions that were directly attributed to Cas? More specifically, which object connected to him felt the most authentic or personal rather than ceremonial?
Did the guides mention anything about his personality that isn't commonly written in biographies? Perhaps a small anecdote, observation or detail that tends to be overlooked? I'm also really really curious about how they explained his suicide. Like how was it presented? And if it came up at all, did they acknowledge the long standing speculation about him *cough* possibly *cough* being a homosexual or was that completely absent from the tour?
Lastly, could you identify any room in the house where Cas himself almost certainly spent a significant amount of time? Somewhere that genuinely felt like "his" space? Also… if you happened to take a bunch of photos, I would shamelessly accept a photo dump. (i'm asking way too much lmao)
I'm soooo sorry this is ridiculously long. I meant to ask these sooner so you could maybe answer them alongside other questions you were already getting and save yourself some trouble…but here I am anyway. I could genuinely keep asking questions for another ten paragraphs but I must stop myself here.
Thank you again for indulging my endless CASTLEREAGH CURIOSITYY!!! ;P
Hiiii again! Thanks for the questions! Glad you enjoyed the previous installments of the castlereaghsplaining saga lol
Sorry to say my answers here will be pretty disappointing. I don't know how familiar you are with the UK National Trust properties, but in a lot of cases, the lesser known/less popular houses kind of function as an appendix to the garden/surrounding greenery where people take their kids and dogs to chill. As a result, the houses themselves end up being "ooo historical, noice, pretty" but not much else — there's not a lot of interpretation going on, not a lot of information about the history of the family, barely any signposting, no tours (or at least I didn't see one at Mount Stewart), no anything. Mount Stewart is pretty much the same. I mean they were literally having a free cello (very fitting tbh) concert in the lobby of the house just to get people to come inside lol. The people who work in the house are elderly unpaid volunteers who do it for fun but not necessarily out of some particular fascination with the history of the family, so their knowledge is limited which is totally ok, cause once again, they are not getting paid for this and it's not really their job. I'm sure that there are volunteers who are unbelievably knowledgeable about the subject but I didn't happen to met them. A volunteer in one room told me that Castlereagh signed the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna which, you know, he didn't because he wasn't even there at that point… so no, no one was spitting rare and exclusive Castlereagh facts, no mention of homosexuality, and I even had to remind one volunteer how he died lol (she said he looked really handsome in his portrait but kinda sad like there's something tortured about him, and I went: 'yeah, girl, he yeeted himself'). Maybe a curator would've been able to give me the info you mention in your question, but curators are too important to mingle with us commoners.
As for the house itself, it was greatly remodelled since the last time Castlereagh was there, the 7th Lord Londonderry and his wife, in particular, changed a lot when they moved in there permanently, so there is not really a room that still looks exactly as it did during Castlereagh's time. I think the Temple of the Winds hasn't changed much but I wasn't able to go there cause it's open only one day a week and I, of course, wasn't there on that day (and was limited in time because of public transport, if there's one thing to know about NT houses is that if you don't have a car you will most likely get trampled by one).
Speaking of personal belongings, not much (if anything) seems to have survived in the first place (or it's hidden in some private collection/still with the family/lost/eaten idk, I wake up every day wondering what the hell Clanwilliam did with Castlereagh's brooch). You can basically look up the whole Mount Stewart collection at the National Trust collections website. But you won't find anything super 'personal rather than ceremonial', I'm afraid…. There is a small exhibition case with his writing instruments, the inkstand, sealbox and inkwells are def his, I think they got them in 2022 when they did the whole death anniversary thing (at that time, judging by the pictures on the internet, a lot of text panels about his life were installed in the house but they are all gone now). The Guelphic Order is Charlie Stewart's. For the pen, folder and those books I can't vouch because I couldn't be bothered to look for "pen" and "folder", etc on the collections website lol (partly because they all didn't strike me as very personal/authentic so ehhh).
The portraits were nice though!!! I wish it were possible to have a closer look at some of them. But yeah, if anyone wants to write a strongly worded letter to the current Lord Clanwilliam asking where the fuck that brooch (and a few rings as well, I think) is, hit me up. Honestly, if you are UK-based or ever have a chance to come to London, go to the V&A, it's free, and Castlereagh's coronation sword, sexy custom inkstand and Order of the Garter regalia are all there and look super cool (and feel more personal cause he was Invested™ in making some of them).
If I seem bitter about the curatorship and management of historical houses, it's because I am, I studied museums and my unneeded professional opinion is that a lot of them, sadly, suck. I'm also still recovering after the disaster that was Walmer Castle. The house at Mount Stewart is still very pretty, though, don't get me wrong, no questions about the preservation of the wonderful interiors.
