AN ISLAND BRIDE.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 July 1928, Page 1

AN ISLAND BRIDE.

MARQUIS OF BUTE’S DAUGHTER. ROTHESAY, Islp of Bute, June 11. A privileged guest at die wedding o’ Lady Jean Crichton-Stuart, the Marquis of Bute’s youngest daughter, which takes place at her home here on Tuesday, will he a pet hare. Lady Jean found it when it was i baby on an Aryrshirc moor last August and immediately chriscned it Augustus. Now it is known to all ' her friends as Gussie. I saw Gussie to-day being nursed In one of Lady Jean’s youngest brother} and was told that lie has travelled nj specially from Cardiff to attend the wedding. Tiny hoots and a white sash are being prepared for him, and during the ceremony Gussie will be carried by one of Lady Jean’s brothers. No Juno bride could ho married in moro beautiful or romantic surroundings. The island is dressed in its lies! shimmering green. MILE LONG WEDDING ABCII.

Approaching Mount Stuart, .for centuries tho homo of the Bute family one traverses an avenue more than a mile long almost tropical in (lie variety and density of its foliage. After Tuesday’s ceremony Lady Jean and her husband the Honourable James Willoughby Bertie, younger son of the late Earl of Abingdon, will pasthrough this natural wedding arch to take a boat for the mainland. Then a motor-car will take Inoni to Wigtownshire for their honeymoon.

■When I asked why Lady Jean had chosen to be an "Island Bride” I was told that it had always been her wish to be married at Mount Stuart where in the tiny chapel adjoining, she was confirmed mid partook of her first coin m tin ion.

I entered the chapel to-day by special permission. Tts interior is of dazzling white marble, modelled in stately Gothic linos. Tho chapel, which has cost £IOO,OOO has been in course of construction for tho last- of) years and i not- yet completed. ’ The altar, in bronze and marble, with silver figures, is fitted with a movable surlaceiof gold and the arnir of tho Bute family arc round the front. It took T2 years to complete and cost £50.000. j FIRST FOR 200 YEARS.

It is the first wedding at Mount Stuart for 200 years, and the whole island is agong with excitement.

The huge wedding cake, six feet high, crowned with a representation of the Gothic spire of the marble chapel, will bo out by Lady Jean in the hall, where HOO tenants and guests will be gathered. One of Lady Jean’s most striking presents is a huge tapestry 10 feet by 20 fee-t named “Lord of the Hunt.” It is perfect in design and workmanship and took twelve years to complete. Eight men started on the tapestry, and .when war broke! on they all joined the Forces Two wero killed, and their sacrifice la recorded on the border of the tapestry, probably in the spot where they last worked on it, by their initials and the years in which the were killed, woven in tho cloth. Between their initials is the web of life which had been severed by a pan of woven shears.