Eduardo Garcia Benito, 1924.

 

New Years Parties

 

Le Choix Pour La Cermonie

 

THE VANDERBILT MANSION IN NEW YORK CITY

 

THE VANDERBILT MANSION IN NEW YORK CITY

Cornelius Vanderbilt II’s 1882 (1893 renovated) mansion exemplifies both the ambitions and extravagance of the nation’s prosperous. When  Commodore Vanderbilt died in 1877, he left  Cornelius II a $5 million inheritance.  Cornelius II used this money to purchase and demolish three brownstone houses on the southwest corner of 57th Street and 5th Avenue in preparation for his new mansion. His wife was instrumental in the extravagance–it was “common belief that Alice Vanderbilt set out to draft her sister in law [Alva Vanderbilt]’s Fifth Avenue chateau, and dwarf it she did.”  Cornelius’ mansion  was reportedly the largest single family house in New York City. Vanderbilt commissioned George B. Post to design the mansion and John LaFarge, Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his brother Julius, Frederick Kaldenberg, Philip Martiny, Rene de Quelin, and Frederick W. MacMonnies to design its interior. Post created a red brick and limestone chateau, which stood out amongst its brownstone neighbors. Today, the property at 742-748 Fifth Avenue, the original address of the Cornelius Vanderbilt II mansion, is now the department store Bergdorf Goodman.

Scotty Bowers

Scotty Bowers Journalist

George Albert "Scotty" Bowers is an American who was a Marine and, from the 1940s to the 1980s, a Hollywood pimp. Stories of his exploits circulated for many years and were alluded to in books such as Hollywood Babylon.

According to film critic Peter Debruge writing for Variety in 2006, "Everyone knows Scotty. After all, he’s been serving drinks to the Beverly Hills crowd for almost 60 years, working a different party almost every night of the week, sometimes two a day." The veracity of Bowers' many claims was endorsed by Gore Vidal; in his last public appearance Vidal spoke at the official launch of the memoir. Robert Benevides, the partner of actor Raymond Burr, said to the LA Weekly: "Scotty just liked to make people happy." Film director John Schlesinger and investigative reporter and novelist Dominick Dunne also attested to Bowers' honesty

Joan Allemand, a former arts director of the Beverly Hills Unified School District, who knew Bowers for more than 20 years and introduced him to his subsequent co-writer, Lionel Friedberg, said: "Scotty doesn't lie about anything. He's a poor kid from a farm in Illinois, and when he got here, his two assets were his big penis and charming personality. That's what he used to feed his family." Cecil Beaton wrote of his sexual encounters with Bowers in his published diary of the 1960s, while Debbie Reynolds wrote in her memoirs of Milton Berle employing him for a party prank. A profile in the New York Social Diary attested to Bowers' connections, career of sexual support, and happy-go-lucky character: "Clients all agreed that he was 'very good' at what he did, and very agreeable... And very discreet. He did not discriminate. He even had one regular longtime client... who had no arms and no legs... The Scotty I knew was a guy who always seemed to be enjoying his life working morning, noon and night, with never a gripe; always with a smile to greet you, and never with an axe to grind. After a lifetime in Hollywood, that's a remarkable feat and its own kind of Zen."

It has been suggested that Bowers' claims were dismissed by some not simply because "virtually everyone he talks about has died", but because "many in the industry still cling to a prudish, homophobic and manufactured version of the past." According to Matt Tyrnauer, director of a documentary on Bowers, it is merely proof of "the enduring power of the (Hollywood) myth machine... created there—by outsiders, Jewish immigrants themselves who were furriers and glove manufacturers projecting a lie of a made-up image of white Americanism... I think there are a lot of people who want to cling to that."

Author William J. Mann, who interviewed Bowers for a biography of Katharine Hepburn, said, "I found him forthright and honest and not interested in personal fame or gain." At that time he turned down Mann's offer to write about him or introduce him to a literary agent. Author and journalist Tim Teeman, who also interviewed Bowers, wrote that "as candid as Bowers was, he was also respectful, and when it came to sex and sexuality utterly without shame and judgment."

Anthony Perkins is best known for playing Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and he was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Friendly Persuasion. Perkins was intense, sensitive, and complex, according to Scotty Bowers in Full Service. He was married with two kids but also gay. His longest gay relationship was with actor Tab Hunter, but he saw many men. Bowers writes that Perkins always wanted someone different. Bowers writes, "He always wanted someone different. 'Who've you got who's different, Scott?' 'Who do you have for me for tomorrow night that will surprise me? Anything really new?"

“Of course, he was carrying on with Tab Hunter for a long time, we were told on good authority,” artist Don Bachardy told author Charles Winecoff in Split Image: The Life of Anthony Perkins. Only in mixed gatherings, such as a party at acting teacher Elaine Aiken’s, would Perkins allow himself to be seen with Hunter. They would go on movie dates but buy tickets separately and sit apart. The Vista Theater, near the predominately gay neighborhood of Silver Lake, attracted a primarily male audience, and Perkins felt comfortable sitting with Hunter there. “Tab was a known homosexual at the time,” camera operator Leonard Smith remembers. “I don’t think Tony was, he kept to himself. But he used to have Tab come on the set two or three times a week, and they’d have lunch or something. The crew made a lot of jokes about it; they were cruel. Of course, Tony was upset. He’d go off to his dressing room, and answer them in a way that said he didn’t want any more of it. If guys made cracks, he’d get upset and just walk away from them.”

George Cukor

George Cukor was a legend in the movie industry. He had directed Camille, starring Greta Garbo, along with classics like Romeo and Juliet and The Philadelphia Story. Cukor had sex with Scotty Bowers, author of Full Service. In their first encounter, Bowers writes that Cukor "moved over to me, began to fondle my balls, then rapidly stroked me to a full erection. In no time at all he started to suck on my erect penis. He was so good at what he was doing that before I knew it I was dizzy with ecstasy and simply lay back until I experienced an absolutely exquisite orgasm." Then, Cukor quickly showered, asked Bowers to shower, and insisted on paying Bowers. Bowers realized that he always has blunt sexual encounters like this. "There was never any foreplay or necking. There was no preamble, nor was there ever any form of penetration. Anal sex was out of the question. To put it crudely, just like my friend, Cole Porter, George just wanted to suck dick. And he would do it with a quick, cold efficiency."

Cole Porter

Cole Porter was a composer and songwriter, and he won the Tony Award for Best Musical for Kiss Me, Kate. In Full Service, Scotty Bowers says Cole Porter asked Bowers to bring two or three Marines over to his house. When Bowers arrived, several young handsome men were there — and his wife, Linda, was not. Bowers writes, "I soon learned that Cole's passion was oral sex. He could easily suck off twenty guys, one after the other. And he always swallowed." On another evening, Bowers took nine of his best-looking young guys over to Porter's house and Porter "sucked off every single one of them in no time. Boom, boom, boom and it was all over." Bowers slept with Porter also. Bowers said Porter "loved to suck me off and then have me fondle him until he reached his own orgasm." Porter was insecure and told Bowers to throw a dinner party and invite a group of 12 or 14 people who had all known Porter for a long time. Porter said he'd hide under the dinner table and eavesdrop as Bowers asked them questions about Porter. They covered the dinner table with three large bedsheets and Porter crawled underneath the table. He heard the entire dinner conversation and never once came out from under the table.

Rock Hudson was best known for his Academy Award-nominated role in Giant with Elizabeth Taylor and Pillow Talk with Doris Day. Rock Hudson's homosexuality was carefully kept secret by his gay agent, Henry Willson, and the studio. They managed to conceal his sexuality right up until the time he died of AIDS in 1985.

He was married to Phyllis Gates, who was a lesbian. In Full Service, Scotty Bowers writes, "Over the year I arranged many tricks for [Gates]. She liked her female sex partners slim, dark-haired, and young." In William J. Mann's Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, an 80-year-old man talks with Mann about the 1950s when it seemed everyone in Hollywood was gay. He said, "Don't repeat all that crap about how tough Rock Hudson had it. You know how he had to pretend to be straight and live a lie and all that. That was just surface. Rock Hudson had it easy. You just have to ask any Joe from Peoria what life was like for him. Who didn't have to lie? Who didn't have to pretend? The difference was, in Hollywood, our bosses lied for us. They protected us. We had a whole community, for God's sake. We had — dare I say it? — power. Where else in America did gays have such a thing?"

Cary Grant was an English actor and considered one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men. He was nominated twice for an Academy Award for his roles in Penny Serenade and None But the Lonely Heart. Randolph Scott was an actor best known for Heritage of the Desert, a film that established him as a Western hero. Cary Grant was married to Barbara Hutton, but he was sharing his house with actor Randolph Scott when Full Services's Scotty Bowers met him. Scott was also married. When Bowers was with Grant and Scott, he writes, "The three of us got into a lot of sexual mischief together. Aside from the usual sucking — neither of them were into fucking, at least not fucking guys, or at least not me — what I remember most about the first encounter was that Scott really liked to cuddle, and talk, and was very gentle." Grant and Scott's relationship lasted for years. They eventually ended up sharing a home together behind the famed Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood as well as their Malibu beach house.

Tyrone Power was an actor most known for The Mask of Zorro and Blood and Sand. In Full Service, Scotty Bowers writes, "Women swooned over him and he bedded quite a few of them, but he much preferred men." He preferred young men in particular, and "some of his sexual tastes were rather odd and offbeat, but none of the guys seemed to mind. He was always meticulously careful about who he saw. He fiercely guarded his reputation at the studio and his position as a highly visible actor, so few outside of a very tight circle could point a finger at him and accuse him of indiscreet behavior." Bowers had a ménage à trois with Power and a random girl, even though Power was married. Bowers writes, "As we romped around that rather grimy hotel room that night it was patently clear to me that Ty had a healthy and inventive sexual appetite, but one that was infinitely more focused on me than it was on my girlfriend. I felt truly sorry for the poor guy. It must have been very tough for him to have to perpetually hide who he really was."

Ramon Novarro was a Mexican film, stage, and television actor who is best known for Ben-Hur and Across to Singapore with Joan Crawford. Novarro was fairly open about his sexuality among industry insiders. In William J. Mann's book Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, Mann writes that Novarro was Haines' polar opposite: quiet, reserved, a devout Roman Catholic...yet at the same time, he was as much involved in the gay subculture as Billy Haines — although he usually prayed for absolution the next day." He and Haines were scolded by MGM's producer, Louis B. Mayer, for patronizing a male brothel on Wilshire Boulevard. In Full Service, Scotty Bowers writes that Novarro loved oral sex so much he referred to semen as "honey." Bowers writes, "He would call me up and say, 'I need some honey. Urgently. Tonight. Help me out and find me a few guys. Please.'" Bowers would bring five or six young guys over to his house, and Novarro, who had a drinking problem, would summon each young man in one by one while Bowers sat in the living room with the other men. Bowers writes, "Within the space of half an hour he would go through them all and then stumble out and call the first one in again." But the first man could not ejaculate again since he already ejaculated, so Novarro would get mad at Bowers, but he was so drunk, he quickly forgot. His alcoholism got out of control. On the morning of Oct. 30, 1968, his body was discovered by his servant in his North Hollywood home. He had been beaten to death by two young male hustlers who thought he had thousands of dollars in cash stashed away in his house. He didn't.

Playwright Tennessee Williams was most known for The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. In Full Service, Scotty Bowers says Williams was still grieving over his longtime companion, Frank Merlo, a sailor he had met who died of cancer in 1963, when Bowers met him. Bowers started sleeping with Williams, who Bowers said "proved himself to be a horny devil once we got to know one another." Bowers remembers him as a very insecure man. Merlo's death, his unhappy childhood, his sister Rose's mental illness and institutionalization, his fractured relationship with his younger brother Dakin, his depression, and his addition to prescription drugs all took a heavy toll on him.

Noel Coward was an English playwright, composer, actor, and singer known for his wit and flamboyance. Coward had many lovers in his day, including Prince George, the Duke of Kent; actors Alan Webb and Louis Hayward; and playwright Keith Winter, according to Scotty Bowers in Full Service. His longest relationship was with the South African actor Graham Payn. He slept with Bowers and never had penetrative sex. Bowers writes, "It was strictly oral, with lots of bodily touching, caressing, and kneading in between." Bowers writes that on one occasion, Coward bought Bowers a first-class return steamer ticket to come to his home in the Caribbean with him. Another time, Coward asked Bowers to spend a vacation in Tahiti with him, but both times, Bowers declined. Coward would attend parties where Bowers would do his infamous "Swizzle Stick Trick," where he'd stir drinks with it. Bowers writes, "People loved to order cocktails and watch me stir them with my flaccid penis. Needless to say, I would always add ice to the drink only after I'd stirred it!"

The street date of Scotty Bowers’ “Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars,” written with Lionel Friedberg, is Valentine’s Day, but the eagerly anticipated memoir has been generating buzz for several weeks, and will most likely encounter a firestorm of criticism from some segments of the Hollywood set. It offers the former Marine paratrooper, pump jockey and bartender’s accounts of three decades of having sex with — or arranging others to have sex with — some of the biggest names of Hollywood’s Golden Age — Cary Grant, Vincent Price, Edith Piaf, Spencer Tracy and the Duke of Windsor.

The title is a not-so-subtle reference to the job that was Bowers’ entree into his career as a sexual “fixer,” pumping gas at the Richfield station at 5777 Hollywood Blvd., where he began to connect former Marine Corps pals and other acquaintances with Hollywood elite looking for secretive sexual encounters — gay and straight — in an era where the studio system and the mores of the day kept a lid on sexual activity and orientation.

Walter Pidgeon

Jacques Potts

He says his first “trick” came in 1946, with actor Walter Pidgeon and milliner-to-the stars Jacques Potts, and other bold-faced names Bowers mentions along the way include composer Cole Porter, director George Cukor, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, Katharine Hepburn and Vivien Leigh. The initial impulse, of course, is to compare Bowers’ allegations about his career with that of Heidi Fleiss, the Hollywood Madam, and though both pandered to the prurient interests of the entertainment industry, Bowers’ fantastical story goes further.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover

porn star John Holmes

Alfred Kinsey

When he wasn’t crossing paths with the likes of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and porn star John Holmes, Bowers writes, he acted as stud service for infertile couples in Colorado, assisted .at least one Hollywood star in a custody battle and helped Alfred Kinsey research his book “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female,” as well as connect Kinsey with former Egyptian ruler Farouk I and his legendary stash of pornography.

Iwo Jima

Brian Epstein

By the time Bowers has finished sharing anecdotes about fighting on the island of Iwo Jima in World War II and once assisting Beatles manager Brian Epstein (one of his tricks) in whisking the Fab Four out of the hands of groupies during an August 1964 visit to Los Angeles, he’s been less than one degree away from so many people and events in popular culture one starts to wonder if “Forrest Hump” might have been a more appropriate title.

This doesn’t mean that “Full Service” is an easy book to read. It isn’t — for several reasons. Chief among them is the gnawing question about the book’s veracity — especially given the fact that virtually all of the people he mentions in the book are long gone and unable to refute his account. (Asked about this in a recent phone interview, Bowers’ response was: “Not only did I do all the things I said I did in the book, I did even more.”) The pacing of the book is a bit uneven in places, choppy in others, and full of purple prose throughout (it’s unclear, for example, why an account of his childhood on the farm needed to include a sentence like: “As my fingers tugged on the cow’s soft teats, her warm milk squirted into the pail.”) and occasionally punctuated by a rhetorical elbow to the ribs. While it’s easy to marvel at his sexual escapades, it’s hard to forge any kind of emotional connection with Bowers, who comes across as well-endowed in the ego department as he suggests he is below the belt and who rattles off the names of his sexual partners with all the emotion of making a shopping list. He even refuses to label his own sexual orientation as straight, gay or bisexual. And even those who consider themselves open-minded and not the least but prudish — gay or straight — may find some of the specific details are too much of an over share (such as some of British actor Charles Laughton’s alleged peccadilloes). Even more troubling — especially in light of the current allegations about teachers at the Miramonte Elementary School — is Bowers matter-of-fact account of his childhood activities, which included his introduction to sex by his adult male neighbor, having sex with not one but several Roman Catholic priests, and arranging a lesbian tryst between a 13-year-old classmate and his own grade school teacher. "The Los Angeles Times" 14feb2012

 Gore Vidal wrote that Bowers was a long time friend whose stories he believed.

Highclere Castle

Highclere Castle is a country house built in the Jacobethan style by the architect Charles Barry in the 19th century, with a park designed by Capability Brown in the 18th century. The 5,000-acre estate is in Hampshire, England, about 5 miles (8 km) south of Newbury, Berkshire. It is the country seat of the Earl of Carnarvon, a branch of the Anglo-Welsh Herbert family. Highclere Castle has been used as a filming location for several films and television series, including 1990s comedy series Jeeves and Wooster, and achieved international fame as the main location for the historical drama series Downton Abbey (2010–15) and the 2019 film based on it. The house, Egyptian exhibition, and gardens are open to the public for self-guided tours during the summer months and at other times during the rest of the year, such as Christmas and Easter. The house also holds ticketed events, such as the Battle Proms picnic concert, and special guided tours throughout the year.

Early years The house stands on the site of an earlier house, which was built on the foundations of the medieval palace of the Bishops of Winchester, who owned this estate from the 9th century. The original site was recorded in the Domesday Book. Edward II An itinerary of King Edward II lists him as spending 2 September 1320 with Rigaud of Assier, the Bishop of Winchester, at Bishop's Clere, alias Highclere. The same tour has him on 31 August 1320 at Sandleford Priory, where he apparently stayed for the night, and on 29 and 30 August he was at Crookham, Berkshire.

The palace was rebuilt as Highclere Place House in 1679 when it was purchased by Sir Robert Sawyer, the Attorney General to Charles II and James II, who was a lawyer, MP, Speaker, and college friend of Samuel Pepys. In 1692, Sawyer bequeathed the mansion at Highclere to his only daughter, Margaret, the first wife of the 8th Earl of Pembroke. Their second son, Robert Sawyer Herbert, inherited Highclere, began its portrait collection and created the garden temples. His nephew and heir Henry Herbert was created Baron Porchester and later Earl of Carnarvon by George III.

Sir Robert Sawyer (1633-1692)

Henry Herbert, 1st Earl of Carnarvon PC (20 August 1741 – 3 June 1811), known as The Lord Porchester from 1780 to 1793, was a British Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1768 to 1780 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Porchester. He served as Master of the Horse from 1806 to 1807 in the Ministry of All the Talents headed by Lord Grenville.

Richard Pococke (19 November 1704 – 25 September 1765) was an English prelate and anthropologist. He was the Bishop of Ossory (1756–65) and Meath (1765), both dioceses of the Church of Ireland. However, he is best known for his travel writings and diaries.

In 1680 Sir Robert Sawyer presented the living of Highclere to the Rev. Isaac Milles (1638–1720), the elder, who remained there till his death. White Oak was the parsonage where Milles took pupils, including the many children of Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke, by marriage the new proprietor of Highclere. The Rev. Isaac Milles (fl. 1701–1727), the younger, carried on his father's school at Highclere. The daughter of Milles, the younger, Elizabeth married Reverend Richard Pococke, LL.B. (1660–1710) and had the Rt. Rev. Richard Pococke (1704–1765), who having been educated by his grandfather Milles, at his school at Highclere rectory, went on to become domestic chaplain to the Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, and then Bishop of Ossory and Meath, and a renowned travel writer and orientalist. Bishop Pococke was one of the first to collect seeds of the Cedar of Lebanon which he did during his tour of Lebanon in 1738. Some of these seeds germinated and grew at Highclere and Wilton House, but probably also at nearby Sandleford and his family's own Newtown House, Hampshire. Coincidentally, the seemingly unrelated and earlier Rev. Edward Pococke (1604–1691), another orientalist, was sometime vicar of Chieveley, and then rector of Childrey both nearby in Berkshire, was an even earlier importer of the cedar. And of his six sons, the eldest, Edward Pococke (1648–1727) was chaplain to the Earl of Pembroke, and rector of Minall or Mildenhall, Wiltshire (1692), and canon of Salisbury (1675).

William Cobbett, portrait in oils, possibly by George Cooke, about 1831 National Portrait Gallery, London

William Cobbett (1763–1835) in his journal of 2 November 1821, while at Hurstbourne Tarrant wrote:

I came from Berghclere this morning, and through the park of Lord Caernarvon, at Highclere. It is a fine season to look at woods. The oaks are still covered, the beeches in their best dress, the elms yet pretty green, and the beautiful ashes only beginning to turn off. This is, according to my fancy, the prettiest park that I have ever seen. A great variety of hill and dell. A good deal of water, and this, in one part, only wants the colours of American trees to make it look like a creek; for the water runs along at the foot of a steepish hill, thickly covered with trees, and the branches of the lowermost trees hang down into the water and hide the bank completely. I like this place better than Fonthill, Blenheim, Stowe, or any other gentleman's grounds that I have seen. The house I did not care about, though it appears to be large enough to hold half a village. The trees are very good, and the woods would be handsomer if the larches and firs were burnt, for which only they are fit. The great beauty of the place is, the lofty downs, as steep, in some places, as the roof of a house, which form a sort of boundary, in the form of a part of a crescent, to about a third part of the park, and then slope off and get more distant, for about half another third part. A part of these downs is covered with trees, chiefly beech, the colour of which, at this season, forms a most beautiful contrast with that of the down itself, which is so green and so smooth! From the vale in the park, along which we rode, we looked apparently almost perpendicularly up at the downs, where the trees have extended themselves by seed more in some places than others, and thereby formed numerous salient parts of various forms, and, of course, as many and as variously formed glades. These, which are always so beautiful in forests and parks, are peculiarly beautiful in this lofty situation and with verdure so smooth as that of these chalky downs. Our horses beat up a score or two of hares as we crossed the park; and, though we met with no gothic arches made of Scotch-fir, we saw something a great deal better; namely, about forty cows, the most beautiful that I ever saw, as to colour at least. They appear to be of the Galway-breed. They are called, in this country, Lord Caernarvon's breed. They have no horns, and their colour is a ground of white with black or red spots, these spots being from the size of a plate to that of a crown-piece; and some of them have no small spots. These cattle were lying down together in the space of about an acre of ground: they were in excellent condition, and so fine a sight of the kind I never saw.'

The house was then a square, classical mansion, but, after an abortive exterior remodeling by Thomas Hopper in Greek Revival style for the second Earl, it was remodelled and largely rebuilt for the third Earl following a design by Sir Charles Barry in 1842–49 during his construction of the Houses of Parliament. It is in the Jacobethan style and faced in Bath stone, reflecting the Victorian revival of English architecture of the late 16th century and early 17th century, when Tudor architecture was being challenged by newly arrived Renaissance architecture influences.

During the 19th century there was a huge Renaissance Revival movement, of which Sir Charles Barry was a great exponent—Barry described the style of Highclere as Anglo-Italian. Barry had been inspired to become an architect by the Renaissance architecture of Italy and was very proficient at working in the Renaissance-based style that became known in the 19th century as Italianate architecture. At Highclere, however, he worked in the Jacobethan style, but added to it some of the motifs of the Italianate style.

This is particularly noticeable in the towers, which are slimmer and more refined than those of Mentmore Towers, the other great Jacobethan house built in the same era. Barry produced an alternative design in a more purely Italian Renaissance style, which was rejected by Lord Carnarvon. The external walls are decorated with strapwork designs typical of Northern European Renaissance architecture. The Italian Renaissance theme is more evident in the interiors. In the saloon, in an attempt to resemble a medieval English great hall, Barry's assistant Thomas Allom introduced a Gothic influence evident in the points rather than curves of the arches, and the mock-hammerbeam roof.

Although the exterior of the north, east and south sides were completed before the 3rd Earl died in 1849 and Sir Charles Barry died in 1860, the interior and the west wing (designated as servants' quarters) were far from complete. The 4th Earl turned to the architect Thomas Allom, who had worked with Barry, to supervise work on the interior of the castle, which was completed in 1878.

The 1st Earl had his park laid out according to a design by Capability Brown in 1774–1777, moving the village in the process—the remains of the church of 1689 are at the south-west corner of the castle. The Lebanon Cedars are believed to be descended from seed brought to England from Lebanon by the 17th century seed collector Edward Pococke.

Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, KP, PC, DL, FRS, FSA (24 June 1831 – 29 June 1890), known as Lord Porchester from 1833 to 1849, was a British politician and a leading member of the Conservative Party. He was twice Secretary of State for the Colonies and also served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

In the 1860s, the 4th Earl drafted the British North America Act of 1867 at the castle alongside the first Prime Minister of Canada John A Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier and Alexander Tilloch Galt, who signed the visitor book in 1866. The 4th Earl presented the Act to Parliament in February 1867 and this led to the foundation of the present-day nation of Canada later that year. After the discovery of documents between him and John A. Macdonald, showing eight weeks of nearly daily correspondence, Janice Charette, the Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, recognized the central role of the 4th Earl in the creation of Canada by planting a maple tree on the lawn on 11 January 2018.

George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, DL (26 June 1866 – 5 April 1923), styled Lord Porchester until 1890, was an English peer and aristocrat best known as the financial backer of the search for and the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

The castle became home to Egyptian artifacts after the 5th Earl, an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist, sponsored the excavation of nobles' tombs in Deir el-Bahari (Thebes) in 1907. He later accompanied archaeologist Howard Carter during the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922.

An exterior shot of the castle and its grounds. During the Second World War, the castle, which has 80 bedrooms and 300 rooms, briefly became a home for evacuee children from London

During World War II the castle provided a home for dozens of evacuee children. The estate was the location of several crashes of allied aircraft, including a B-17 Flying Fortress parts of which are now in the possession of Highclere.

A B-17 flew over the castle at a memorial to the WWII effort

In 2003, Lord and Lady Carnarvon undertook major roof repairs. In 2007, Lord and Lady Carnarvon created the Egyptian Exhibition, which lies in the cellars of the castle and tells the story of the discovery of Tutankhamen by the 5th Earl.

Seemingly beautiful: Despite the stunning setting, Highclere Castle in Berkshire has been ravaged by damp and rot and needs £12m spent on it to preserve the historic home for future generations

Shocking truth: A fireplace in one of the dilapidated bedrooms with mould growing on the walls

Sleepless nights: Lord Carnarvon shows the damage inside his ancestral home and fears millions of pounds will have to be spent to save the castle

Weathered: Stone has crumbled away from a carved face 

a massive hole has appeared in the ceiling of one of the bedrooms

By 2009, the castle was again in need of major repair, with only the ground and first floors remaining usable. Water damage had caused stonework to crumble and ceilings to collapse; at least 50 rooms were uninhabitable. The 8th Earl and his family were living in a "modest cottage in the grounds"; he said a lack of repair by his ancestors caused the castle's long term problems. As of 2009, repairs needed for the entire estate were estimated to cost around £12 million, £1.8 million of which was urgently needed just for the castle.

From 2010, the castle was used as the main filming location for the ITV/PBS drama series Downton Abbey, which brought the castle international fame.

As of late 2012, Lord and Lady Carnarvon said that an increase in the number of paying visitors allowed them to begin major repairs on both Highclere's turrets and its interior. The family attributed this increase in interest to the on-site filming of Downton Abbey. The family now live in Highclere Castle at various times throughout the year, but return to their cottage when the castle is open to the public.