Grey of Fallodon

I know practically nothing about history. And the thing with history, is that when it’s within welly-throwing distance of where you live you tend to take even less notice of it.

For example I have always known that the statue at the top of Grey’s Monument in Newcastle is a member of the Grey family.

The clue being in the name.

And I know that he was a lot to do with Earl Grey Tea and Howick Hall. But his name? No, sorry, I have absolutely no idea.

My friend the TK Maxx Ambassador was more than a little shocked when she discovered my complete and utter lack of knowledge regarding the area within 10 miles of my home. Ask me who had a fling in 1994 with the man who lives in number 12 and I will undoubtedly know the answer. Ask me why planning permission was revoked at number 17 in 2002 and I will probably know that too but ask me what the state rooms are like at Alnwick Castle, then I haven’t a clue.

Aside from how many tourists there will be in Seahouses on a Bank Holiday weekend, I know only one other thing about my local area and that is that an incredible gentleman lived just around the corner from my home.

When I was a child I was told by someone (incorrectly) that there was a Prime Minister buried at the bottom of Fallodon Hall’s garden. This was of no interest to me and it was only in latter years when I began reading about Edward Grey 3rd Baronet of Fallodon that I felt the need to go back to memorial that lies under the trees near the lake, to tell him that I was sorry. So, so very sorry for not giving him the respect that he deserved.

Fallodon has a tranquil but quiet confidence and after reading all that I have about Edward Grey, I can’t help but think that he has a lot to do with Fallodon’s warm voice.

You will have heard words spoken by Sir Edward Grey even if you don’t know his name. He was the man who was Foreign Secretary at the outbreak of World War 1 and after a giving a speech to the opposition in Parliament which led to the British cabinet voting unanimously to go to war, he stood, looking out of a window in his room in the Foreign Office and said: “Lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”

He was first elected as the Berwick upon Tweed candidate for parliament when he was 23 and was the youngest MP in the House of Commons at that time. Grey is the longest serving Foreign Secretary that we have ever seen, serving 2 terms from 1892 to 1895 as Under-Secretary of state in Gladstone's final administration and then from 1905 to 1916 in Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Herbert Henry Asquith’s governments as Secretary of State.

Edward Grey was born in London on 27th April 1862 and was the eldest of 7 children born to Colonel George Henry Grey and Harriet Jane Pearson. His Father died unexpectedly when he was 12 and his Grandfather who then took responsibility for him died when Grey was 22. It was then that he inherited the title of Baronet, a private income and his ancestral home where he had learnt to fish as a small boy, the 2000 acre Northumbrian Estate of Fallodon. 

A gentle and humorous man with a great love of the countryside, it is said that upon his adulthood he could only recognise the song of the Robin and the Blackbird. Grey married Dorothy in 1885 and it was she who instilled the knowledge and love of wild birds that captivated him for the rest of his life. He wrote The Charm of Birds in 1927 and it remains today, a beautiful book. Unchallenging to read and comprehend and his knowledge, patience and enthusiasm are evident on every page. I have to confess that I have never read his earlier publication Fly Fishing which was published in 1899 but it is still critically acclaimed even after all these years.

Bird watching and fishing aside, he was also an outstanding athlete, being Real Tennis Champion whilst at college in Winchester and being British National Champion in 1889, 91, 95, 96 and 98. (He was runner up in 1892, 93 and 94 which were the years in which he held Office.)

Grey detested being in London and as Fallodon was too far away to be used as a weekend retreat, he built what he and Dorothy simply called “Cottage” on a piece of land at Itchen Abbas near Winchester. With its corrugated iron roof and modest brickwork, this was initially meant to be place where he could rest while fishing but he and Dorothy used it as a weekend retreat and guarded their time there carefully. After finishing work on a Friday evening Grey would catch the last train from Waterloo and after alighting at Winchester near midnight would walk the 4 miles in the darkness to Cottage. Together he and Dorothy kept a diary of the birds seen at Cottage and on the river Itchen and he later privately published this diary as The Cottage Book.

Unhappily, death seemed to follow Grey with some conviction. He was married to Dorothy for only 11 years before she fell from the cart which she was driving and suffered a horrific head injury. It happened at the hamlet of Ellingham near Fallodon and although Edward caught the train from London and made it back to Northumberland to be with her, she never regained consciousness and died 3 days after the accident.

Grey was devastated by Dorothy’s death. She had been his soul mate and it would be 16 years before he married Pamela with whom it is alleged that he had always had a close relationship. Sadly his second marriage lasted merely 6 years before Pamela was taken ill while staying alone at Cottage. Edward took the earliest train available from Fallodon but was told of her death upon his arrival at Kings Cross.

In addition to the loss of both of his wives, his 3 brothers and his nephew, his dearly loved Fallodon burnt almost to the ground in 1917 and Cottage burnt down after bed linen was left airing close to the stove in 1923.

Work began to rebuild Fallodon on a slightly smaller footprint in 1919 but no such work was undertaken at Cottage and all that remains of it now is the brick chimney stack.

Edward Grey was a man who had the power to stop the mainland train at his Fallodon station, a short walk from his beloved family home. And he was humble enough to never stop a train that stopped at nearby stations unless it was an emergency, in fact The Flying Scotsman only stopped once at Fallodon when Grey was a Cabinet Minister. This was the era when the train from his own private station would take between 8 and 10 hours to get to London. Now, you can catch the train from Alnmouth at 6.21am and be in London at 9.40am. I wish he could have experienced that.

He eye sight deteriorated to the point that he could only read with artificial light and with the book held an inch from his nose. Unable to see to cast a fly or watch his adored birds, he said that the only sport still available to him was hunting for his glasses.

His health was not good in the Summer of 1933 although friends who visited him reported that he was in good spirits, even laughing when a red squirrel fell down the chimney and emerged in the house covered in soot. He continued to serve his “duck dinner” to his wild but unpinioned ducks and feed the squirrels by hand until the day he died.

He passed away at his beloved Fallodon on 7th September 1933.

There is a memorial to him at the Foreign Office where he watches over the Ambassador entrance that he himself used for the 11 years that he was in office. It is inscribed with “By uprightness of character, wisdom in council and firmness in action, he won the confidence of his countrymen, and helped to carry them through many and great dangers.”

Next weekend Fallodon Gardens are open to the public. On Saturday 29th June they are open as part of the National Garden Scheme and on Sunday 30th June they are open in aid of the Red Cross. Fallodon was one of the original gardens to be opened to the public to raise money for Nurses in 1927 and I’m sure Grey would give a rich chuckle of approval at the number of people who have come to look at the gardens since the current family began opening them to the public in 1976.

So this weekend, come to Fallodon and you too can sit beneath the Larch tree where this man gave his Duck Dinner. You can walk through the Victorian Greenhouse where the figs and the apricots grow. You can walk around the kitchen garden where the strawberries flourish to the size of golf balls and see the citrus trees that grow in the heated greenhouse. You can walk down the steps to the sunken garden that Grey created in honour of Dorothy and you can enjoy tea and cakes in the grade 2 listed stable yard.

And if you do come; make sure that you take the path from the hostas by the bog garden. Go through the gate, over the bridge and through the trees to where he lies accompanied by whispering trees and birdsong. The inscription on the stone reads: Here among trees that they planted together are placed the ashes of Edward and Dorothy Grey.