An invitation to Knebworth House was never an everyday affair. Other guests include the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Queen of Oasis, whose sold-out concerts in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s immortalized the place as the stately home of rock ‘n’ roll.
However, there were some strict rules for overnight stays. “It didn’t matter who you shared a bed with, you had to be out of your room by ten in the morning because that’s when the velvet rope was back in place and the paying public were let in,” one regular visitor remembers.
“If you were late, you could hide everything under the bed and sneak back out later.”
This was a rare concession from Knebworth’s chatelaine Lady Cobbold to those who did not want to leave their romantic entanglements until the last possible moment.
For she had to manage the precarious task of keeping the house running with a keen eye on the bottom line, even if that seemed at odds with her feisty, hippie-esque beauty and otherworldly appearance.
For decades, Chryssie Lytton Cobbold, who has died aged 83, and her late husband David, the 2nd Lord Cobbold, kept the family seat and 250-acre park afloat with a mix of flamboyance, optimism and rock ‘n’ roll.
Lady Cobbold, pictured in 1995, once subtly referred to her marriage to David, the 2nd Lord Cobbold, as ‘slight promiscuity’
The dashingly handsome David is said to have fathered two children with different women
With its creeper-clad turrets and fearsome gargoyles, Knebworth House was a crumbling ruin when Chryssie and David took on the task of restoration in 1969
“There was always something leaking, rotting, falling off or needing repairs,” says an old friend.
The headlines suggested that it was the music and reputation of the best organized festivals in the world that allowed Knebworth to pay its bills, but Lady Cobbold’s craft skills were just as important.
Thanks to her debutante years, when she was a £3-a-week pattern cutter at Worth, the London couturier, she has reupholstered old chairs, stitched new curtains and cushions and refurbished old fabrics. And when she wasn’t sewing, she was brandishing a paintbrush or hacking away at overgrown flower beds.
With its creeper-covered turrets and eerie gargoyles, the house was a crumbling ruin when she and David took on the task of its restoration in 1969. His parents had been unable to give it away: “They offered it to the county council, then a series of government agencies, but they all said they couldn’t justify the cost,” Lady Cobbold recalled years later.
Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones at a concert at Knebworth in the 1970s
David Lytton-Cobbold and wife Chryssie on skateboards with their children, Peter, Richard and Rosina, at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire
Oasis, pictured, enjoyed sold-out concerts at Knebworth in the 1990s
‘One day while living in our flat in London with our four children, we visited Syon House (home of the Dukes of Northumberland in Brentford). We were very impressed with what they had done, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we give it a try?’
Despite the fears of his father Kim, former Governor of the Bank of England and Lord Chamberlain to the late Queen Elizabeth, that the estate would be an impossible burden, the couple set about building roads and toilets with gusto and restaurants.
There were challenges: Chryssie was once woken in bed by mice nibbling her toes. Although they had far less money than bigger rivals such as Longleat and Woburn Abbey, when they opened their doors two years later, visitors poured in. The house, a bizarre mix of Tudor and Victorian Gothic, was not the only attraction.
As well as an impressive collection of Jacobean furniture and tapestries, there were all kinds of curiosities – from Winston Churchill’s love letters to David’s grandmother Pamela, Countess of Lytton, a noted society beauty, to a crystal ball left by an occultist whose ghost is said to have captured the passages of Knebworth would sneak up.
But finances were precarious. Salvation came with music. In 1974 they performed their first concert with Van Morrison and the Allman Brothers at the top of the bill. There were critical acclaim and the era of country house rock had begun.
Later festivals featured Pink Floyd, Genesis, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Robbie Williams and, in August 1986, Freddie Mercury’s last concert with Queen. The two concerts Oasis played in the summer of 1996 were described as the ‘gig of the decade’, while the audience of 125,000 people per night was said to have resulted in the two biggest rock concerts Britain had ever seen.
When rock star royalty stayed over, stories of shady and unexpected behavior inevitably quickly spread. Mick Jagger is said to have left a pair of blue underpants at the bottom of the 16th century bed that Queen Elizabeth I once slept in, while Noel Gallagher rang the doorbell to ask if he could have a bath.
Chryssie’s worst moment was the first time she invited a band to her house for drinks. She expected only the members of Pink Floyd – plus wives and girlfriends – and set out a few ashtrays.
Forty people poured into the house – ‘liggers’ she called them – looking for a free drink. At that moment, the police and drug squad arrived to reflect on the day’s events, and they too seemed thirsty. “I gave them whiskeys in the kitchen while the band and their friends were in the den, rolling up joints as far as I knew.”
Time stood still as she rushed around trying to keep the two groups separated. “I almost collapsed with relief when the police left, completely oblivious to all the naughty goings on next door,” she said.
But Chryssie was not one to wait for aristocratic formality. With her long blonde hair, gentle manner, fascination with astrology and her visits to Glastonbury, Lady Cobbold was in many ways a 1960s archetype. This also applied to her husband. They married young – Chryssie was 20, David 23 – and, putting aside the prevailing prejudices of the time, adopted two Ugandan school friends of their eldest son Henry.
And in true Sixties style, their marriage survived what she once subtly called “mild promiscuity.” A more blunt assessment would describe their marriage as an open marriage. The dashingly handsome David is said to have fathered two children with different women. For her part, Lady Cobbold acknowledged that there were ‘occasions when someone was somewhat promiscuous’. I think it was because everyone did it, one did it too. But you grow out of it.
‘I think there is far too much sexual behavior. There is a lot of fuss about adultery. Most people are probably guilty at some point, but a happy marriage should be able to deal with the occasional transgression.”
Sure enough, she and Cobbold remained happily married until his death in 2022, according to this maxim. Neither his indiscretions nor her predilection for the Bohemian, thrice-married Count of St. Germans made any difference.
When her husband died after years of battling Parkinson’s disease, she decorated his coffin with artwork from his favorite Pink Floyd album and placed a memorial bench next to his grave in Knebworth with the inscription: ‘See you on the dark side of the Moon.’
A day after her death from pancreatic cancer, Lady Cobbold was buried next to him.