Thrumpton Hall: A Memoir of Life in My Father's House

In 1944, twenty-one year old George FitzRoy Seymour ecstatically bought the house of his dreams Thrumpton Hall in Nottinghamshire, England; the home his Foreign Service parents abandoned him in with relatives when he was two. To make the purchase he marries wealthy Rosemary Scott-Ellis. However, the estate and the manor house instead of his wife became his significant other as everything he did from that pivotal point was to keep his house in perfect order. He expected his children to be as perfect as the house and ripped author Miranda Seymour for being a fat teen. He also did not hide his sexual preference for young males. This is a fascinating memoir that is made even stronger by the author being the daughter of the subject and her key disclaimer that she does not know all the skeletons. George is an intriguing individual who knew the intricate history of his house especially as the first minor to reside there in over three centuries. His childhood abandonment impacts his adulthood at a time in which the aristocracy is in rapid decline following WWII. He obsesses over owning and maintaining THRUMPTON HALL. Readers will appreciate renowned biographer Miranda Seymour's look at growing up with a father who cherished his house as his significant other and loved the edifice seemingly more than he did his family. Harriet Klausner

I really enjoyed this book and would have kept reading if it was twice as long. Just a great portrait of one of the last of a vanishing breed of great country home owners in England. Seymour's writing is crisp and clear, as she skillfully interweaves past to present. My only comment would be that I never fully understood why the author hated her father. He evidently could be a little difficult - not exactly unusual - but he was hardly a monster. To me, he seems to have made the best out of being a man who no longer fit his times. Regardless, a book well worth reading.

Miranda Seymour is the author of a number of highly regarded biographies (Henry James, Mary Shelley) - in this book she turns her attention to the story of her family with a focus on her Father. Her Father's object of affection, is not Seymour (his daughter) but "Thrumpton Hall" - a beautiful country house in Nottinghamshire. Her Father George Seymour was left in the care of his Aunt at Thrumpton Hall at a very young age - being described by his Mother as being "unfit and weakly" to make the trip to La Paz with the other family members. George Seymour grew up in solitude or in the hands of nanny's - over time, the child fell in love (compulsively) with Thrumpton Hall. He was not the sportsman's type and acted as a much older member of aristocracy - which made him the subject of ridicule of school mates. Later, as many of his classmates and friends were enlisted in the draft and went off to war, George Seymour, after several attempts to attend boot camp, was dismissed for a condition called "effort syndrome" - the drill sergeant not being impressed with his physique, his attitude and his aversion to team sports - - George was sent home. Despite this profile, once George was locked in on a mission, he was unstoppable - he was charming, relentless, controlling, determined and not easily put off. He eventually was successful in acquiring his love (Thrumpton Hall) but learned that this came at quite a cost. "My father had hoped for so much from the House. It was his Camelot, his grail, his lost land redeemed, from which all good would flow. But the House couldn't give more than it was. It couldn't confer friendship or success. This was a source of bewilderment, sadness and disappointment...The House was the grail that my Father pursued throughout his life. It came as a shock (to him) that it was an empty cup." Much of the later part of the story speaks to Miranda Seymour's "pain of being displaced" by her Father with the House, younger boys, his other addictions at the time. P. 238: "I'm clearer on the fact that it was, once more, the pain of displacement that troubled me most. Being ousted, reduced to a lesser place in my father's affections than his friend: this was what hurt, like a bad headache, all the time." My assessment of the book: * Hang in there. The story starts to cook after 100 pages or so. I'm not a avid history reader or fan of British aristocracy (and the related quirkiness) and found the first one hundred pages or so that lay the foundation for her Father's childhood, teen and adult years to be thick, dense and somewhat of a grind. Yet , the story catches hold once Seymour moves in and squarely focuses on her Father's, Mother's and family's life. * The book is exceptionally well researched but fully engaging. I was awestruck by how Miranda Seymour is able to pull the history and facts together in a compelling storyline. The book is a mere 270 pages - it can be read in 1 or 2 sittings - yet you have le

"Thrumpton Hall" is a delightful memoir by author Miranda Seymour. It is a strange but fascinating real story of the romance of George Seymour, the author's father, first with Thrumpton Hall, a grand manor house in which he grew up in Nottinghamshire, England, and, later in life, his second romance with a leather-clad motor cycle rider, a young man named Robbie. Even though George FitzRoy Seymour was a descendant of the Marquess of Hertford and related to the 10th Duke of Grafton, he had no title; but he craved for one. It is said that if one is poor and strange he is considered a lunatic or mad man, but if one is rich and strange he is considered most assuredly an eccentric. So, George Seymour was considered an eccentric man. When George's father was posted to La Paz as a diplomat, George was sent to Thrumpton Hall and put in the care of his aunt, his mother's sister, Lady Byron. He was only two years old. Thrumpton Hall belonged to his aunt and uncle, Lord Byron, a descendant of the famous poet. Lord and Lady Byron, who were childless, gave George his own quarters in the manor house, in the attic. People with extraordinary and strange names such as ShotBolt the butler, who was his best friend, and Percy Crush the footman, who shined his shoes, and Sarah Death the house maid who tended to his needs, create an indelible impression as if you were reading a Gothic novel, and not a memoir that it is. His uncle gave him life tenancy at Thrumpton Hall, but when his uncle died, the tax bill was so huge that George bought the manor on borrowed money. George married Rosemary Scott-Ellis, a daughter of the 8th Baron Howard de Walden, not for his love for Rosemary, but for his love of her inheritance. Unluckily for him, she never inherited anything, much less a fortune. In middle age, not finding the happiness he sought from the manor, George, dejected, tried to find solace in the company of young men, and became a biker. Be bought a motorcycle and, dressed in leather pants and jackets, began riding around the countryside, first with Nick, a local shopkeeper's son, and after Nick married a woman and broke George's heart, with Robbie, who became George's second greatest love in life, after Thrumpton Hall, of course. Written in prose so grand and lyrical, and the story so captivating, that reading "Thrumpton Hall" was a great delight. Miranda Seymour's prose - the Queen's English, that precious thing one rarely finds in modern literature, was music to my ears: "His address provides the clue to George FitzRoy Seymour's most substantial achievement. Deposited with its childless owners as a baby, he fell in love with the House that always seemed to be his natural home. His vocation was announced in one of the first roundhanded essays he wrote as a schoolboy. When he grew up, he wrote, he wished to become the squ'arson of Thrumpton Hall, combining the role of landowner and parson as his uncle, Lord Byron, the poet's descendant, had done before him.

This true family story of an English manor house and the spell it weaved on the author's father. George Seymour was not a nice man, husband or father -- abandoned as an child, he fell in love with the house where he was raised and dedicated his life toward it. The author tells an entertaining story of her father's eccentricity but can't conceal the the fact that he was not very likable. The author is likable and tells her tale in crisp and clear prose.