“I fear Waddesdon will share the fate of most properties whose owners have no descendants, and fall into decay. May the day be yet distant when weeds will spread over the gardens, the terraces crumble into dust, the pictures and cabinets cross the Channel or Atlantic, and the melancholy cry of the nightjar sound from the deserted towers!”
Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839-98)
It appears that Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, the builder of Waddesdon Manor, foresaw the fate that awaited many great English country houses in the twentieth century.
