The Octagon.
He married in 1828 Lady Sarah Elizabeth Beresford, eldest daughter of the second Marquis of Waterford, and by her had issue living four sons, viz.—Charles John, present, nineteenth, Earl of Shrewsbury; the Hon. Walter Cecil Talbot, who, in 1869, assumed, by Royal Sign Manual, the surname of Carpenter in lieu of that of Talbot, on his succeeding to the Yorkshire estates of the late Countess of Tyrconnell; the Hon. Reginald Arthur James Talbot, M.P. for Stafford; and the Hon. Alfred Talbot; and three daughters, viz.: Lady Constance Harriet Mahunesa, married to the Marquis of Lothian; Lady Gertrude Frances; and Lady Adelaide, married at her father’s death-bed, June 1st, 1868, to the Earl Brownlow. The eighteenth Earl died in June, 1868, and was succeeded by his son, Charles John, Viscount Ingestre, M.P., as nineteenth earl.
The present peer, the noble owner of princely Alton, of Ingestre, and of other mansions, Charles John Talbot, nineteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, fourth Earl of Talbot, of Hemsoll, in the county of Glamorgan, Earl of Waterford, Viscount Ingestre, of Ingestre, in the county of Stafford, and Baron Talbot, of Hemsoll, in the county of Glamorgan, Hereditary Lord High Steward of Ireland, and Premier Earl in the English and Irish peerages, was born in 1830, and was educated at Eton and at Merton College, Oxford. In 1859 he became M.P. for North Staffordshire, and, in 1868, for the borough of Stamford. In 1868 he succeeded his father in the titles and estates, and entered the Upper House. He formerly held a commission in the 1st Life Guards. His lordship married, in 1855, Anne Theresa, daughter of Commander Richard Howe Cockerell, R.N., and has issue one son, Charles Henry John, Viscount Ingestre, born in 1860; and three daughters, the Hon. Theresa Susey Helen Talbot, born in 1856; the Hon. Gwendoline Theresa Talbot, born in 1858; and the Hon. Muriel Frances Louisa Talbot, born in 1859.
The Earl of Shrewsbury is patron of thirteen livings, eight of which are in Staffordshire, two in Worcestershire, and one each in Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and Shropshire.
The arms of the earl are, gules, a lion rampant within a bordure engrailed, or. Crest, on a chapeau, gules, turned up, ermine, a lion statant, with the tail extended, or. Supporters, two talbots, argent.
We have thus given a history of this illustrious family from its founder to the present day, and proceed to describe its principal seat in Staffordshire—the beautiful and “stately home” of Alton Towers.
The castle of the De Verdons, which was dismantled by the army of the Parliament, stood on the commanding and truly picturesque eminence now occupied by the unfinished Roman Catholic Hospital of St. John and other conventual buildings, &c. A remarkably interesting view, showing the commanding site of the castle, and the valley of Churnet, with Alton Church, &c., is fortunately preserved in an original painting from which our first engraving is made.
The site of Alton Towers was originally occupied by a plain house, the dwelling of a steward of the estate. A hundred and forty years ago it was known as “Alveton (or Alton) Lodge,” and was evidently a comfortable homestead, with farm buildings adjoining.
When Charles, fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, succeeded to the titles and estates of his family, in the beginning of the present century, he made a tour of his estates, and on visiting Alton was so much pleased with the natural beauties of the place, and its surrounding neighbourhood, that he determined upon improving the house and laying out the grounds, so as to make it his summer residence.[1] With that view he added considerably to the steward’s dwelling, and having, with the aid of architects and landscape gardeners, converted that which was almost wilderness into a place of beauty, he called it “Alton Abbey,”—a name to which it had no right or even pretension. To his taste, the conservatories, the temples, the pagoda, the stone circle, the cascades, the fountains, the terraces, and most of the attractive features of the grounds, owe their origin, as do many of the rooms of the present mansion. A pleasant memory of this excellent nobleman is preserved at the entrance to the gardens, where, in a noble cenotaph, is a marble bust, with the literally true inscription—