Helen told us about the colourful Locker-Lampson family and the entertaining and illuminating history of the Newhaven Court, built in 1884 by the charismatic American baronet Sir Curtis Lampson and his daughter, Janie. The elegant Victorian mansion stood under the wide-open Norfolk skies for almost eighty years before its dramatic destruction by fire in 1963.
Newhaven Court was a home where poets rubbed shoulders with politicians and aristocracy with artists and authors. Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson, heroic chain-smoking explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, troubled Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, Princess Ileana of Romania, eminent Professor Albert Einstein and French brandy drinking tennis superstar, Suzanne Lenglen were just some of the fascinating guests who stayed at Newhaven Court.
