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Eleanor Doughty

@brushingboots.bsky.social
326 followers 200 following 827 posts

Writer on the aristocracy, big houses, old money; author of HEIRS AND GRACES, a history of the modern aristocracy, which is out now! Views my own, yours for £. edoughty92@gmail.com www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305/heir…

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Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
'You see the Green Party saying things like "the rich are hoarding money". But who is actually hoarding money?' For this week's Great Estates I went to Skipton to see the brilliant Roger Tempest on the Broughton estate, which has been in his family since 1097 www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a917219...
telegraph.co.uk
‘The rich are being attacked. We don’t have hoards in the bank – we have mortgages’
Great Estates: Broughton Sanctuary is one of many ancestral homes anxiously awaiting the Budget
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
You'd have to ask them!
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is from their own website. It is usually fairly obvious where people who have had estates since the 11th century got their land from! It's not for me to judge whether that's right or wrong
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
'You see the Green Party saying things like "the rich are hoarding money". But who is actually hoarding money?' For this week's Great Estates I went to Skipton to see the brilliant Roger Tempest on the Broughton estate, which has been in his family since 1097 www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a917219...
telegraph.co.uk
‘The rich are being attacked. We don’t have hoards in the bank – we have mortgages’
Great Estates: Broughton Sanctuary is one of many ancestral homes anxiously awaiting the Budget
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Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
'We are deeply sorry for what took place. People often ask, ‘you must have known...’ – No!' For this week's Great Estates I went to Ampleforth to interview the abbot Dom Robert Igo – about IICSA, monastery life and the cost of living in an abbey. It was a lot. www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/37cdadf...
telegraph.co.uk
‘Even a monastery isn’t immune to the cost of living crisis’
Great Estates: Ampleforth Abbey is putting its troubled past behind it with a ‘creative’ vision for the future
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
'We are deeply sorry for what took place. People often ask, ‘you must have known...’ – No!' For this week's Great Estates I went to Ampleforth to interview the abbot Dom Robert Igo – about IICSA, monastery life and the cost of living in an abbey. It was a lot. www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/37cdadf...
telegraph.co.uk
‘Even a monastery isn’t immune to the cost of living crisis’
Great Estates: Ampleforth Abbey is putting its troubled past behind it with a ‘creative’ vision for the future
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Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
'We need to take more risk. The UK has a lower GDP per capita than Louisiana. Why? Because the US takes more risk' This week's Great Estates is at Cornbury with the insurance magnate David Howden – and what fun it was! On new money, snobs, the City, and Ascot www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/f81d34c...
telegraph.co.uk
‘I’ve spent millions on my 5,000-acre estate – and I don’t even own it’
Great Estates: an insurance magnate from the City has turned Cornbury House into a hard-working home
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I have spent the afternoon reading one of the IICSA reports (for work) and truly, this is not a good way to spend time
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
'We need to take more risk. The UK has a lower GDP per capita than Louisiana. Why? Because the US takes more risk' This week's Great Estates is at Cornbury with the insurance magnate David Howden – and what fun it was! On new money, snobs, the City, and Ascot www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/f81d34c...
telegraph.co.uk
‘I’ve spent millions on my 5,000-acre estate – and I don’t even own it’
Great Estates: an insurance magnate from the City has turned Cornbury House into a hard-working home
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
A short story in a few lines. My house has had the same roof for almost 200 years. It hasn’t rained for three months. House has been beautifully dry all summer in preparation. Whole new roof slated to start this week; scaffolding is now up. What is it now doing? Raining, biblically. Fab!
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Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Lord Kimble Montagu didn't meet his father, the Duke of Manchester, until he was 21 – and he's never spoken about it before. This week's Great Estates is on the old Manchester pile, Kimbolton Castle, now a school, ft several bankrupt dukes and Catherine of Aragon www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/14973bf...
telegraph.co.uk
‘My grandfather sold our country house to a school in 1950. I’d do the same thing today’
Great Estates: Lord Kimble Montagu is glad that Kimbolton Castle has a living purpose
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Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
‘I don’t know what they teach them there but Etonians are always right’ I went to Holkham to see the inimitable @jakefiennes.bsky.social: on the worst harvest in 30 years, wildfires, ‘as the brother of…’, the king, and exactly how much rain we now need ASAP www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/af7c0fc...
telegraph.co.uk
Jake Fiennes: People are to blame for wildfires, not rewilding
The conservationist on irresponsible campers, the ‘hindrances’ of his surname and how the Government doesn’t understand rural communities
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Good spot, thank you – have emailed to ask! (I don't write the captions!)
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
They’ve definitely been on the down ever since! I had to check when peers were able to actually become bankrupts as there were so many
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Lord Kimble Montagu didn't meet his father, the Duke of Manchester, until he was 21 – and he's never spoken about it before. This week's Great Estates is on the old Manchester pile, Kimbolton Castle, now a school, ft several bankrupt dukes and Catherine of Aragon www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/14973bf...
telegraph.co.uk
‘My grandfather sold our country house to a school in 1950. I’d do the same thing today’
Great Estates: Lord Kimble Montagu is glad that Kimbolton Castle has a living purpose
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Were the Newcastles not Pelham-Clintons? In any case I wrote about the main Fiennes line, the Saye and Seles, here a few weeks ago, and I didn’t detect any Newcastles then www.telegraph.co.uk/money/proper...
telegraph.co.uk
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
‘I don’t know what they teach them there but Etonians are always right’ I went to Holkham to see the inimitable @jakefiennes.bsky.social: on the worst harvest in 30 years, wildfires, ‘as the brother of…’, the king, and exactly how much rain we now need ASAP www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/af7c0fc...
telegraph.co.uk
Jake Fiennes: People are to blame for wildfires, not rewilding
The conservationist on irresponsible campers, the ‘hindrances’ of his surname and how the Government doesn’t understand rural communities
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
A few years ago I went to interview a hereditary peer in the Lords. I suggested a date and he said, great, tea – what time? I replied saying 11am, and he replied ‘that would indicate coffee’. That leads me to believe that there is very definitely a time for ‘tea’, per se, and it is not 11am.
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Apropros recent events, I was minded to look up Peter Carter-Ruck and this (new to me) detail about his relationship with Private Eye does not disappoint. I knew the F/Ruck bit but not that there was a coda
Extract from Peter Carter-Ruck's Telegraph obituary:
In 1989 Carter-Ruck publicly attacked the £600,000 damages awarded to Sonia Sutcliffe against the magazine and was invited to an Eye lunch, an occasion he attended with some trepidation. Not long afterwards, he asked if, in the new spirit of friendship, they would now stop printing the first letter of Ruck as an F. Their response, not unpredictably, was to print the first letter of Carter as an F as well. "I think my relationship with Private Eve is now definitely hate," he said later.
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Be a writer, they said – it'll be fun, they said. And yet here I am reading up on the Bankruptcy Law Consolidation Act 1849. (It is still the best job there is.)
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
My garden furniture cushions are outside but you know what, nevermind! Nice for them to have a shower too. God knows it's been long enough since they were accidentally left outside with any consequences
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Oh my good lord, it's raining. A rare, sweet pleasure
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Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
This week's Great Estates is on Revesby, Lincolnshire where I learnt how to herd deer, went stoat spotting and almost fell into the reservoir! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/2d2198f...
telegraph.co.uk
‘We’ve always treated our 6,000-acre estate like an elderly relative that needs looking after’
Great Estates: village charm and bustling business keep Revesby relevant in the 21st century
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Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
History Rage Podcast @historyrage.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
📅 #onthisday 3 Aug 1945 Manny Shinwell became Minister of Fuel and Power. Soon after, open-cast mining transformed the grounds of #WentworthWoodhouse . @brushingboots.bsky.social reveals the clash between government need and aristocratic estates. 🎧 Listen : pod.fo/e/3a194b #History #Podcast #otd
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
This week's Great Estates is on Revesby, Lincolnshire where I learnt how to herd deer, went stoat spotting and almost fell into the reservoir! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/2d2198f...
telegraph.co.uk
‘We’ve always treated our 6,000-acre estate like an elderly relative that needs looking after’
Great Estates: village charm and bustling business keep Revesby relevant in the 21st century
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
(No, I am not going to use AI to transcribe it for me; yes, these are the consequences of my recent decisions – banking interviews – coming for me.) I just want to write some words and make some sly jokes and do some research and crucially not look at Excel, is that such a crime???
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
This week I have been doing a lot of specifically Not Writing work so am desperate to actually use my brain and Write Something, yet here is a 101-minute tape that I have to transcribe first and OH the indignity!!!
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
They do! It’s really good fun – they do dinners too, it’s a genuinely wonderful experience
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I went to see Oli and Alex yesterday! It’s an amazing place and they are fabulous
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
People say that stuff is iconic and it almost never is but perhaps the Crooked House in Lavenham actually is. A very civilised Monday morning indeed
The Crooked House in Lavenham, Suffolk with a blue MGT GT outside
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
On the Other Place MrMemory (who isn't on here?) points out that Hilary Benn leaving government means that Andy Burnham will be the first Labour PM who has not, so far, had a Benn in his cabinet. Of course, there's still time, given that Lord Stansgate remains in the Lords, ironically
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Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
Philip Coggan @philipcoggan.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Andy Burnham definitely going back to the 1970s by appointing a man called Healey as chancellor
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
V much read this as Denis Healey rather than John and took myself by some 40-year-old surprise
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
I feel the same – I'm sure I'm paying too much but I'm also sure he saves me his fee and I like him and I don't want the hassle of moving. We are yet to discuss MTD as I have adopted the ostrich approach for now
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Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
William French @wtfrench76.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Ach, really sad news with which to start the week. RIP. --> BBC broadcaster Edward Stourton dies aged 68 www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...
theguardian.com
BBC broadcaster Edward Stourton dies aged 68
Corporation pays tribute to ‘outstanding’ journalist who presented shows including Today and One O’Clock News
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
This week's Great Estates is on the outrageously beautiful Broughton Castle where I had a gorgeous day with Lord Saye and Sele – or rather, Martin Fiennes as he prefers to be known. On new money, old money and why (just) being posh doesn't cut it in the big house www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/3a00d20...
telegraph.co.uk
‘Being posh doesn’t pay the bills. Castles need passion, commitment and money’
Great Estates: Broughton Castle has survived war and tragedy but heritage alone won’t secure its future
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Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Slightly inevitably I wrote about George Cottrell, Nigel Farage and the aristocracy for the Spectator spectator.com/article/the-...
spectator.com
The aristocracy is still very good at producing black sheep
Wouldn’t you be a bit odd if you were from a family that lived in a massive house and had endured generations of being waited on?
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
That is very odd. I just checked DBP to see if the paper had somehow got the date wrong but no, she was indeed born in 2012
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Plus ça change, eh? I'm only surprised it hasn't happened sooner, to be honest
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Huh, so David Ross has a peerage at last I see. He's changed his tune. This here from my 2021 interview with him where he was brusque, if not rude – and his PR told me not to mention the fact that we were meeting behind a big black door with '10' on the front www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/...
"There is an EdStone in my garden." The original? "You'd have to go and look at it," he says. Where does the motivation for political donation come from? "Political donations are not philanthropic in [the same] sense." There is a pause while he taps a paperclip on the table. Would he like a peerage? "No."
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Yes, of course – I just don't see myself as the sort of person that votes LD, however inexplicably weird/misguided that might be. As I say, it's more about me than the LDs. I agree completely about Farron and Lamb! Would I vote LD if I lived in TF's constituency? Possibly, bc of his own credibility
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Do you really want me to answer those questions or are you just bored and want a row? I have written an entire book about the aristocracy and that might answer all of your questions! Why the Tories didn't overturn the hunting ban I do not know but obviously I am enormously in favour of that
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
I realise it sounds mad but I just can't ~identify~ as a Lib Dem which says more about me than the Lib Dems! I'm from an old-fashioned countryside c/Conservative background and in my family that's just what we do: we don't go in for extremism of any kind. And that's fine until it isn't – like now
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Yes I agree! I am also constantly astonished by how former Tory voters can support for Reform – I genuinely find it bizarre when to me c/Conservatism is so clearly defined, but I accept that I'm on the centre-left of (a formerly) centre-right party and so those further right have always existed
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Yes that's true – I can't explain it but I just can't identify as a Lib Dem which says more about me than the Lib Dems! (In any case to vote that way where I live would be pointless so it's moot)
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
You didn't at all – and I try!
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
VAT on school fees, hunting, hereditary peers are the first three that come to mind as they are germane to my personal/ professional interests but given that, as a centre-right Tory voter I don't subscribe to left-of-centre economic pursuits I'm not likely to agree w/ their fiscal priorities either
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
I can’t not vote either! Which is why this is troubling. I imagine plenty of people just don’t bother if the answer isn’t staring them in the face
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Me too! You won’t remember but long ago when I was at QMUL I came to see you during your office hours, despite being from another department, to bore on about political journalism, back when I wanted to be a sketchwriter – it’s a small world!
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Eleanor Doughty @brushingboots.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Where I live it’s pointless voting Lib Dem so it wouldn’t do me any good, but as a political philosophy I think that’s very reasonable. I’m a eurosceptic Remainer so was/am ambivalent on Brexit but still somehow feel so tribally old Tory despite myself and despite it being only an illusion nowadays
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