Cliveden was the spark-point for the Profumo Affair. Photo / Getty Images
Cliveden was the spark-point for the Profumo Affair. Photo / Getty Images
The old saying of "if these walls could talk" is never more pertinent than when applied to Britain's great castles and stately homes.
Over the best part of a millennium, these palaces and fortresses have been witness to numerous scandals - affairs, divorces, betrayals, murders, back-stabbing, skulduggery and general mischief.
They have overheard murmurs and rumours that have swept lords, ladies and lovers up into their grip - and heard the patter of fleeing feet on the rear stairs, reports Daily Telegraph.
Sadly, walls cannot hold conversations. But if you visit one of the 10 following properties of occasional ill-repute, you may still detect echoes of the rank misbehaviour which came before...
The bastion of twinkle-eyed devilry by which other grand British bastions of twinkle-eyed devilry tend to be judged. This elegant 19th century retreat, on slopes above the slow-flowing Thames in Buckinghamshire, was, of course, the spark-point for the Profumo Affair. It was here, on the weekend of July 8-9 1961, that John Profumo, then the Secretary of State for War, met Christine Keeler (probably - they may have been introduced before), a would-be model who was also sexually involved with Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet spy. According to legend, Keeler was swimming naked in the house's outdoor pool when the politician spotted her. Their resultant affair was short (about half a year), but its revelation would cost Profumo his position.
Modern-day echo: The swimming pool is still there, open to guests who stay at the house.
Scandal also rattled the corridors of this 18th century country house on the Isle of Wight. It was home, in the 1770s, to Seymour Fleming, a femme fatale who married Sir Richard Worsley, the seventh Baronet of Appuldurcombe, in 1775. Theirs was not a happy union. The couple were ill-paired. Lady Worsley is said to have had 27 lovers before she ran off with George Bisset, her husband's friend and neighbour, in November 1781. The situation did not go well for anyone. Lord Worsley sued Bisset, but the revelations which emerged during the suit ruined his image. Bisset and Lady Worsley later separated, and she was forced into a life as a society mistress, before being imprisoned in Paris during the French Revolution. Fleming was portrayed by Game Of Thrones star Natalie Dormer in the 2015 BBC TV film The Scandalous Lady W.
Modern-day echo: Damaged by the Luftwaffe in 1943, the house has been left to decay, and is now mostly a shell. But visitors can still stroll through 11 acres of gardens designed by Capability Brown - which were commissioned during Lady Worsley's residency there, in 1779.
Arguably best known for its connections to the writer Vita Sackville-West, this sprawling property near Sevenoaks in Kent had a more notorious inhabitant in the 18th century. John Sackville, the third Duke of Dorset, was an unabashed ladies' man. He had several high-profile mistresses - among them Giovanna Zanerini, a star ballerina on the London stage. They had a son together, but separated in 1789, the year before Dorset married the 23-year-old heiress Arabella Cope.
Modern-day echo: Knole is a fine dot on the Kent landscape, known for its lovely grounds and deer park. But it remembers this most gifted of its old flames - a sculpture of a naked Zanerini, reclining on a divan amid a pile of cushions, commissioned by the Duke, lights up one of its broad rooms.
A lingering mist of naughtiness swaddles this 18th century architectural wonder near Hatfield in Herfordshire. Partly, this is down to the current Baron Brocket, a colourful character who has served time in prison for insurance fraud, and also appeared on reality TV shows such as I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
But Charlie Brocket, as he likes to be called, is not the first resident of this picturesque estate to have raised eyebrows and headlines. Go back to the late 18th century and you find Lady Caroline Lamb, a woman of elevated breeding who achieved a shocking fame in 1812 when she had an affair with Lord Byron. Her husband was a high-ranking politician, and the matter became a topic of public gossip - although it did not seem to harm the cuckolded William, who became Prime Minister in 1834. Caroline, however, died at just 42, and remains known for having held a banquet at the hall to mark one of her husband's birthdays where she served herself to guests as one of the courses. On a silver platter. Naked.
Modern-day echo: You can sample some of the giddy ambience of Brocket Hall by staying the night - or by playing one of the two golf courses which now take up some of the grounds.
Originally a 16th century mansion, near Wellesbourne in Warwickshire, Walton Hall had its period in the spotlight in the 1860s, just after the owner Sir Charles Mordaunt had asked the Victorian superstar architect Sir George Gilbert Scott to create him a new home in the Gothic Revival style. Scott duly obliged, but succeeded in creating a palace where Sir Charles's wife Harriet would make merry. The pair married in 1866 - but would not be a picture of joy and unity for long. Whispers would begin to circulate that Lady Mordaunt was receiving gentlemen visitors while her husband, a Conservative MP, was away. And the premature birth of a daughter, Violet, in February 1869, sparked a sudden confession that she had been unfaithful with lovers including "Lord Cole, Sir Frederick Johnstone, the Prince of Wales and others, often and in open day." Letters from the Prince, who would become Edward VII, were found in Harriet's desk. Wild gossip, and all manner of legal proceedings, became the order of the day.
The scandalous scenes which "engulfed" this 17th century red-brick jewel - at South Harting in West Sussex - in the 18th century, were caused by the lust for life of its owner, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh. Very much a playboy, in 1780 he hired the 15-year-old Emma Lyon to dance naked at a party he threw for friends at his country estate. Emma would gain wider infamy as Lady Hamilton, mistress to Lord Nelson - but not before Fetherstonhaugh had fathered her daughter (also Emma). Fetherstonhaugh discarded his teenage lover once the child was born, and would not marry until the twilight of his life. He was 70 when, in 1825, he wed Mary Ann Bullock, a maid in his dairy. She was 18. They lived happily ever after - until his death in 1846, aged 98.
Emma Hamilton. Photo / Getty Images
Modern-day echo: Sir Harry's rather more benign effect on the grounds is still apparent. He commissioned the iconic landscape designer Humphry Repton to create the avenue of trees which offsets the house.
Now owned by Merlin Entertainments, and reborn as a hotspot for medieval-themed family weekends, this formidable fortress of the Midlands has seen plenty of dark hours in the near-millennium since it was founded by William the Conqueror (in 1068). It was here that the sorry tale of Piers Gaveston reached its endgame. Gaveston was the best friend and, perhaps, lover of Edward II - but was loathed by the English nobility for the closeness of his relationship with the king. Captured by the Earl of Warwick and delivered to the castle, he was subject to a brief kangaroo-court trial, sentenced to death, and lynched on nearby Blacklow Hill on June 9 1312.
Modern-day echo: The castle has been magnificently restored. A monument to Gaveston was erected on Blacklow Hill - but not until 1823.
Visit: You can stay in one of the castle's "Woodland Lodges" from £170 (NZD $312) per night (these sleep up to four people). Day visits from £17.50 (NZD $32.17) (warwick-castle.com).
8. Berkeley Castle
Edward II would not enjoy a much happier fate than his favourite. At odds with the aristocracy for much of his reign, he was eventually deposed by his wife, the French princess Isabella, and her lover the Earl of March (the crown going to Edward's young son, Edward III) - before being imprisoned in Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. The story of the fallen monarch being killed via a red-hot poker inserted into a very private place is almost certainly a) apocryphal and b) an early homophobic smear - but Edward surely died in the castle, and was most likely killed by parties acting for his wife and her new boyfriend, probably on the night of September 21 1327.
Modern-day echo: You can still see the cell where Edward was supposedly killed.
Edward II was not the only English monarch to be kicked off the throne, then quietly disposed of when attention was focused elsewhere. Seventy-two years later, the equally unpopular Richard II lost the crown to his cousin Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV) on September 30 1399, and was imprisoned in Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire. The exact cause of his demise - on February 14 1400 - is unclear, but he may simply have starved to death, left to rot by his enemies.
Modern-day echo: Once one of the great strongholds of the north, Pontefract Castle was the scene of bitter fighting during the English Civil War - and, as a royalist fortress, was all but destroyed by Oliver Cromwell's forces in 1649. But you can still wander through its ghostly ruins, and the stone walls of the medieval keep are still visible. A new visitor centre was added to the site in 2015, in an attempt to highlight the story of one of the country's forgotten places.
Elizabeth I wasn't such a grumpy spinster. Photo / Getty Images
10. Cumnor Place
One of England's greatest royal scandals had its roots in the quiet Berkshire village of Cumnor. History has painted Elizabeth I as a grumpy spinster - but in the summer of 1559 she was 25, less than a year into her reign, and involved in an increasingly close friendship with the dashing Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester.
There was just one problem. The charismatic Dudley was already married. Or, at least, he was until September 8 1560, when - while he was away with the queen at court - his wife Amy was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in Cumnor Place, the small property where she was staying while her husband dealt with matters of state. Foul play was suspected. Amy had a broken neck and two wounds to her head. A coroner's jury came back with a verdict of "accidental death", but the suggestion that he had had a hand in his wife's death clung to the earl. Unsurprisingly, a second marriage, to the queen, never happened.
Modern-day echo: Cumnor Place is no more. A 14th century stone structure, it was unloved by a series of owners, and was demolished around 1810. But some of it lives on. Some of the windows in All Saints' Church in nearby Wytham were taken from the old house.
