janeandbobandmore: HUGHENDEN MANOR: DISRAELI'S COUNTRY HOME

HUGHENDEN MANOR: BENJAMIN DISRAELI’S COUNTRY ESTATE

The country home of Benjamin Disraeli tops a hill in the town of High Wycombe about ½ hour by train from London’s Marylebone Station. Disraeli served as British Prime Minister several times during the 19^th century. Dizzy purchased the home in 1848 and lived there until his death in 1881. A guide from the National Trust took us through the manor house while recounting many anecdotes about Disraeli and especially his pithy comments and acid wit. Of the thousands of books he inherited from his father Isaac D’Israeli he only retained non-fiction. If he wanted to read fiction, he said he would write it himself which he did.

“Should the Mr. Gladstone (his rival in the Liberal Party) fall into the Thames, it would be a tragedy. Should anyone jump in the river to save him, it would be a catastrophe.” “William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.” Clearly, the two men were bitter political rivals!

“Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.” Or…”Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of grief, the blunder of a lifetime.”

Disraeli was Prime Minister at a time of the fullest expansion of the British Empire. A great achievement for a boy born Jewish whose father brought him to conversion when he was only 12. Taking advantage of his new religious identity, he entered politics and rose to be Queen Victoria’s first minister.

Hughenden Manor also served a critical, secret purpose during WWII when the British realized that they needed a center to analyze photographs and produce more accurate maps of Germany for Bomber Command. Its WWII code name was Hillside and just became revealed in 2004, after the expiration date of the Secret Act. The manor was a mere 10 miles from the Royal Air Force (RAF) headquarters and was situated in a hilly part of England where it would be hard for the Germans to attack . The Spitfires and later, the Mosquitoes, flew over German targets armed only with high speed, high-resolution cameras to photograph these enemy sites. Upon return to England, they landed at bases near Hughenden, transferred their film to motorcycle couriers who then drove them for processing at this secret location. Specially trained photo analysts would examine the film (sometime with 3-D) and begin a map-making process. Finished maps with only the needed details for the flight navigators would be taken aloft for the bombing runs. The British dropped bombs by night; the Americans by day. The landmarks on those special composite photographs were critical to each successful Allied raid.

So many of the British manor houses were occupied by military personnel that no one in town thought anything unusual or special was going on --- just another group of soldiers doing their job in SECRET AND SILENCE.

As we walked the footpath through fields and stiles en route back to the High Wycombe train station, we passed the town museum where an English Civil War reenactment group was conducting a demonstration. The English Civil War preceded our own Civil War by about 220 years. With drummers drumming and 20 foot pikes, these Royalist soldiers marched across the field to fight for King Charles and his divine right to rule. The local children loved the action and the pageantry as did we.