SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
London: The swimming pool is long, serene and lined with huge healing crystals, the water unbroken. The sauna is full of financiers, businessmen and banter led by Sir Ben Elliot, the former Tory chairman and a nephew of Queen Camilla. Wellness-obsessed housewives ease themselves into cold-plunge barrels. Battles rage on the padel courts, involving illustrious names such as the Belvoir scion Lady Alice Manners, jeweller Charlie Pragnell and Charlie Brooks, the racehorse trainer and husband of Rebekah, Rupert Murdoch’s British media chief. Upstairs afterwards, it’s Chateau Leoube rosé and WFB: working from Bamford. More specifically, The Club by Bamford.
None of my sources have spotted Meghan here yet, but this is the place the Sussexes will really need to crack if they want to make it into a certain Cotswolds set. And it will be much trickier to enter this world than the celebrity enclave Soho Farmhouse, where the Duchess of Sussex was seen earlier this month amid much speculation that the pair have decided to put down roots in the Cotswolds.
A ready-made heaven of cream tones, The Club requires an annual fee of £4000 ($7500), a £1650 joining fee and the approval of the committee to become a member. Member or not, Meghan should seek to impress its owner, Cotswolds power broker Lady (Carole) Bamford. The Club is on the Daylesford Farm estate, along with its famous shop and Daylesford House itself, where Lady B, as she’s known to friends, lives with her husband, Lord (Anthony) Bamford – owner of JCB and donor to both the Tories and Reform UK. If Meghan wants to rise socially here, Carole Bamford is exactly who she needs. In the court of the Cotswolds, she is queen.
“If you get invited to one of her personal parties,” says a longstanding member of the hierarchy, nervous about identification, “you’re in. Carole knows absolutely everybody. If she’s curious about someone, she’ll probably invite them. JD Vance went to Daylesford, Boris Johnson [had his wedding celebrations there] and Jeremy Clarkson is there the whole time. She can entertain on a large scale.”
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But there is a dividing line between new Cotswolds and old Cotswolds. While the Bamfords themselves are as respected, country-savvy and popular as you can get, the “new Cotswolds” set, who come to play at the weekend and splash the cash at places such as Daylesford, are more overtly glossy – bankers and hedgefunders rather than farmers and gentry – and they are sometimes looked down upon by the people who see themselves as “real country”. Meghan will have to choose which group she wants to appeal to most.
The challenge of becoming a member of the Daylesford scene won’t be the only uphill battle for Meghan as she seeks to become accepted in the Cotswolds. At a grand dinner party last Saturday night, one social friend conducted an experiment: “I sat next to these men and started talking about Meghan, and one almost left. He said, ‘If you say that word one more time …‘. So it wasn’t only ‘We don’t want anything to do with her’, but ‘Do not degrade my house by bringing it up’. I think half of these people are friendly with the King, so it’s maybe in deference to him and the stuff they’ve been through.”
To stand a chance, she’ll need to become au fait with the faultlines. Helen Kirwan-Taylor, writer, broadcaster and fellow American, who moved near Cirencester on the Gloucester side of the Cotswolds decades ago, is an expert. “The real snobbism is between the Gloustocracy and the Beckhams,” she says. Sir David and Lady Victoria Beckham have become shorthand for the Oxfordshire celebrity scene, which also includes Ellie Goulding and Simon Cowell.
Some see the divide plainly as Gloucestershire vs Oxfordshire – “real country” versus a glamorous cosplay version for weekenders. Though it’s not so clean-cut as that. Kirwan-Taylor describes the glossy set as “usually finance or media bros, and they don’t really know anything about the Cotswolds”: “They’ll go to the members’ clubs. They chose it because of what their friends do and say, and they’ve never been outside of that little triangle.”
Meghan will have to get up to speed fast. You can tell a phoney a mile off, especially an American phoney. For example, she mustn’t say “The Cotswolds” – a tourist term that proves you’ve never really been. Real locals refer to the exact town: Chipping Norton or Cirencester or Stroud. The deepest rooted identify themselves by which A-road they live near.
Just because you have enough millions in the bank to buy property here does not make you a member of the Gloustocracy. You need to be able to prove you know something, by speaking the lingo. “The Gloustocracy are the real deal. Conversations end up being about horses or farmland or right of way or dual carriageways,” says Kirwan-Taylor. “The real giveaway is whether your kids actually go to one of those country schools, and if they don’t, then you’re really an imposter. Or worse, a weekender.”
Meghan will need to understand the social map to parlay her way into any of the “in” crowds. Tetbury is the grandest of them: the locale of Highgrove and Gatcombe, Princess Anne territory, and home to the landed gentry and the polo set. Stroud “is becoming really, really fashionable”, Kirwan-Taylor says. That’s where designer Lulu Guinness and author Plum Sykes live and where property is still considerably cheaper. But it might be a bit too boho for Harry and Meghan.
The American and billionaire crowd are perhaps the most natural friends for Harry and Meghan. They’re two a penny here, and the new wave are incredibly wealthy. Sir Jony Ive, formerly chief designer at Apple, lives in the area, as does his Australian best friend, industrial designer Marc Newson. Of course, there is Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, who moved near Asthall on the Oxfordshire side. “She is very close to Meghan,” says a neighbour, “but I think Ellen and Co are a bit isolated. It’s really hard to break into English society who just don’t care [about American celebrities]. They do entertain and tip outrageously, though.”
To avoid isolation, Meghan and Harry might be able to crack the Oxfordshire celebrity circle typified by the Beckhams, whose huge new build near Soho Farmhouse, the most popular celebrity hangout, has beehives where David makes honey. Sports agent David Gardner, 50, who is one of Beckham’s closest friends, lives nearby with his fiancee, 33-year-old model Jessica Clarke, as do Simon Cowell and his wife, Lauren Silverman. This group will find a more natural rapport with the incoming Sussexes: they all have second homes in America and they love Soho Farmhouse, where the “real” country folk wouldn’t be seen dead.
Then there’s Jeremy Clarkson, who was driven to such distraction by the idea of Meghan that he wrote a highly derogatory column in The Sun about her in 2022, for which he had to apologise. “I hate her on a cellular level” was one of the less offensive lines. They are clearly never going to be best friends, but they may have to learn to be in the same room as each other. Clarkson is the only celebrity who fits into both the nouveau and the real country sets – “You go to a Christmas party, he’s there,” says the social insider.
This kind of rift could affect their chances with an important but highly incompatible group. If Clarkson’s pub, The Farmer’s Dog, is a no-go zone, then Lord David Cameron of Chipping Norton, a former British prime minister, could be out of reach. “DC”, as he is referred to by friends, runs a tight social ship with his wife, Samantha: a circle comprising a gaggle of Sheffields (Cameron’s in-laws), Ben Elliot and Charlie and Rebekah Brooks among many others. They wield considerable influence and have no time for the indulgent self-pity that the Sussexes promote. Samantha is a consummate hostess in their house.
Drag-hunting aficionado Johnny Hornby and his wife, Pippa, are close by at Dean Manor, the 18th-century Cotswolds country pile awarded “best swimming pool” by Tatler in last year’s Country House Awards. That’s where JD Vance, a keen hunter, stayed during his summer trip to Britain, but it’s hard to see Meghan getting on board with bloodsports in any format (including artificial). Hornby will already know Harry: he stepped down as a trustee of his charity Sentebale in 2023.
What Harry and Meghan will really need is invitations to the illustrious estates. Every town has a stately home owned by a grandee. Meghan should be prepared to do anything for the call-up from Lady Bamford, the PR tycoon Matthew Freud and Sheherazade Goldsmith at Burford Priory or the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, Henry and Georgia Somerset, at Badminton House.
Freud, says the social insider, “is really taking over”. There is a popular padel scene at Burford, attended by film stars, captains of industry and politicians. Games are often followed by a glamorous drinks party. Of all the stately homes, it seems like the most familiar territory for Meghan, with actresses and Democrats aplenty.
The ultimate sign that the Sussexes have made it here will be if, after next year’s Badminton Horse Trials, Tatler reports that Georgia Beaufort has invited Meghan to her private dinner. She and the Duke, aka “Bunter”, are famous for their parties, which go on until the early hours, and they have perfected the art of being grand and cool all at once. Bunter’s “rave to the grave” 70th birthday is exactly the kind of invitation that would certify social success for Harry and Meghan. Meghan can impress by wearing vintage Yves Saint Laurent.
The who-to-woo list is not complete without Fiona Howden, the wife of financier David, who has transformed Cornbury Park, near Charlbury, Oxfordshire. Having moved from the Yorkshire Dales, they are the definition of newbies who got fully stuck in and earned the respect of everyone. A key date in the Cotswolds calendar for the Sussexes to mark is Cornbury Horse Trials in September. Princess Beatrice made an appearance this year; perhaps the Sussexes will make it next time around.
A warning: if Meghan thinks that the jam-making that helped her win friends in Montecito might have a similar effect in the Cotswolds, she’ll be disappointed. “So many of my friends make their own jams, bake their own breads,” says Kirwan-Taylor. “One person literally came to dinner with her own beef. She could almost name the cow.” Meghan has had success with wannabes who are obsessed with lifestyle and live on TikTok. “But bringing jam to someone’s house in England is always a bit of a joke, because they just made their own batch and probably sell it at Waitrose themselves.”
To curry favour, Meghan will need to turn into the most charming and generous hostess there is. Let’s hope their house is built for entertaining.
Ever the optimist, Plum Sykes – whose Substack newsletter is Cotswolds catnip – sent me some words of encouragement for Meghan: “If you work very hard at it, and entertain in fabulous style and with great generosity, a la Fiona Howden or Lady B, becoming the latest Queen of the Cotswolds is entirely do-able, whoever you are.” Good luck …
The Telegraph, London
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