Great British eccentrics

Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-wilson, 14th Baron Berners (1883–1950)

AS a young boy, Lord Berners heard that, if you threw a dog into water, it intuitively learnt to swim. Expanding on this theory, the boy lobbed his family dog out of the window to teach it to fly. Happily, the dog survived. At his Faringdon House, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), life was certainly colourful—particularly after he had all the pigeons on the estate dyed in pastel shades. Lord Berners, inspiration for Lord Merlin in Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love, once invited an Arab stallion into the drawing room to be painted, although his pet giraffe remained outdoors. His Rolls-royce was custom-fitted with a clavichord and when he commissioned a 145ft tower—faringdon Folly—he placed a sign at the entrance reading: ‘Members of the public committing suicide from this tower do so at their own risk.’ Sidney Hiscox

Illustrations by Emma Mccall