PEER’S HOME IN A LIGHTHOUSE

Shannon News, 30 November 1926, Page 3

PEER’S HOME IN A LIGHTHOUSE

SOLITUDE AMID jTHE BILLOWS. The strangest home on record is surely that of Lord and Lady Onslow, . who have adapted the lighthouse on the lonely, island of St. Agnes, nearly thirty miles west of Land’s End, and made of it a comfortable home. A quarter of a century ago, Lord Onslow, fifth Earl of the line, and son of a former Governor of New Zealand, entered the diplomatic service, serving at Madrid, Tangier, Petrograd and Berlin, after which he came home as assistant private secretary to Sir Edward Grey. When the Great War came he began as second lieutenant, and was colonel by the time peace was declared. By that timo ho had married a daughter of the late Lord Baltimore, one of the most charming and talented women in the kingdom. With a town house in St. George’s Square, and Clandon Park, near Guildford, as country residence, the Onslows found seclusion almost unattainable. As a member of the diplomatic corps, a popular army officer, and later as Civil Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Onslow found his visiting list a very extensive affair.

The idea of utilising a lighthouse as a home is credited to‘ Lady Onslow, but, whether she or her husband succeeded in finding this 'refuge from too-assiduous friends, the result is this strange home that overlooks the Atlantic surges.

St. Agnes, the island on which the lighthouse stands, is a fertile little isle, among the Seillies, where the lonely cliffs abound with sea. fowl.

Here the Onslows found real seclusion, with a 'cook and manservant to attend to their needs. Simply and comfortably furnished, • the lighthouse makes an ideal ' retreat from the world, and nere, when the London season ends, the Earl and his Countess retire, safe from the intrusions of the over-attentive, and alone except for the two ser-, vants. s . At night, when from the southwest the unleashed wind roars about the structure, and the mighty waves shake the very rock in which the lighthouse is bedded, its occupants know tlio real meaning of solitude, for here they are utterly cut off from the world.