On Tuesday, the House of Lords dismissed the appeal of
"Lord Henry Brace and others," who desired to prevent the sale of the mansion house of Lord Ailesbury and the pleasure- grounds—including Savernake Forest—" usually occupied in conjunction therewith." Lord Iveagh therefore becomes the possessor of the most beautiful piece of woodland-scenery in the world, plus a rent-roll of some 220,000 a year, for 2750,000, or only three times the price of the Althorp books, which are hardly as good as oaks that can remember the Romans and the Druids. The decision is as sound in reason as in law, for had the sale been forbidden and the estate passed, as it would have done for Lord Ailesbury's life, into the hands of the money-lending creditors, it would have meant something like ruin for the five thousand people who live on the estate.
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