Eleanor Doughty

‘This is a marvellous book’ Heirs and Graces is reviewed in today’s Times and I am a little emotional (again). www.thetimes.com/article/68f2...

For years I was curious about the house that lurked in the background of the Great British Bake Off, Welford Park. This year I wrote to the owners, the Puxleys, and they kindly agreed to be in Great Estates – and it's out now!

For years I was curious about the house that lurked in the background of the Great British Bake Off, Welford Park. This year I wrote to the owners, the Puxleys, and they kindly agreed to be in Great Estates – and it's out now!

For this week's Great Estates I went to Hodsock Priory where the cricket-playing future baronet George Buchanan told me that Rachel Reeves' 2024 Budget will likely force the sale of the estate in due course. He was remarkably pragmatic about it – a new view on IHT www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a438342...

Sticking to my strategy of always (not never) reading the comments below my work, just in case it gives me a laugh, and today it has paid off

For this week's Great Estates I went to Hodsock Priory where the cricket-playing future baronet George Buchanan told me that Rachel Reeves' 2024 Budget will likely force the sale of the estate in due course. He was remarkably pragmatic about it – a new view on IHT www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a438342...

'You see the Green Party saying things like "the rich are hoarding money". But who is actually hoarding money?' For this week's Great Estates I went to Skipton to see the brilliant Roger Tempest on the Broughton estate, which has been in his family since 1097 www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a917219...

'You see the Green Party saying things like "the rich are hoarding money". But who is actually hoarding money?' For this week's Great Estates I went to Skipton to see the brilliant Roger Tempest on the Broughton estate, which has been in his family since 1097 www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a917219...

'We are deeply sorry for what took place. People often ask, ‘you must have known...’ – No!' For this week's Great Estates I went to Ampleforth to interview the abbot Dom Robert Igo – about IICSA, monastery life and the cost of living in an abbey. It was a lot. www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/37cdadf...

'We are deeply sorry for what took place. People often ask, ‘you must have known...’ – No!' For this week's Great Estates I went to Ampleforth to interview the abbot Dom Robert Igo – about IICSA, monastery life and the cost of living in an abbey. It was a lot. www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/37cdadf...

'We need to take more risk. The UK has a lower GDP per capita than Louisiana. Why? Because the US takes more risk' This week's Great Estates is at Cornbury with the insurance magnate David Howden – and what fun it was! On new money, snobs, the City, and Ascot www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/f81d34c...

I have spent the afternoon reading one of the IICSA reports (for work) and truly, this is not a good way to spend time

'We need to take more risk. The UK has a lower GDP per capita than Louisiana. Why? Because the US takes more risk' This week's Great Estates is at Cornbury with the insurance magnate David Howden – and what fun it was! On new money, snobs, the City, and Ascot www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/f81d34c...

A short story in a few lines. My house has had the same roof for almost 200 years. It hasn’t rained for three months. House has been beautifully dry all summer in preparation. Whole new roof slated to start this week; scaffolding is now up. What is it now doing? Raining, biblically. Fab!

Lord Kimble Montagu didn't meet his father, the Duke of Manchester, until he was 21 – and he's never spoken about it before. This week's Great Estates is on the old Manchester pile, Kimbolton Castle, now a school, ft several bankrupt dukes and Catherine of Aragon www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/14973bf...

‘I don’t know what they teach them there but Etonians are always right’ I went to Holkham to see the inimitable @jakefiennes.bsky.social: on the worst harvest in 30 years, wildfires, ‘as the brother of…’, the king, and exactly how much rain we now need ASAP www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/af7c0fc...

Lord Kimble Montagu didn't meet his father, the Duke of Manchester, until he was 21 – and he's never spoken about it before. This week's Great Estates is on the old Manchester pile, Kimbolton Castle, now a school, ft several bankrupt dukes and Catherine of Aragon www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/14973bf...

‘I don’t know what they teach them there but Etonians are always right’ I went to Holkham to see the inimitable @jakefiennes.bsky.social: on the worst harvest in 30 years, wildfires, ‘as the brother of…’, the king, and exactly how much rain we now need ASAP www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/af7c0fc...

Apropros recent events, I was minded to look up Peter Carter-Ruck and this (new to me) detail about his relationship with Private Eye does not disappoint. I knew the F/Ruck bit but not that there was a coda

Be a writer, they said – it'll be fun, they said. And yet here I am reading up on the Bankruptcy Law Consolidation Act 1849. (It is still the best job there is.)

This week's Great Estates is on Revesby, Lincolnshire where I learnt how to herd deer, went stoat spotting and almost fell into the reservoir! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/2d2198f...

📅 #onthisday 3 Aug 1945 Manny Shinwell became Minister of Fuel and Power. Soon after, open-cast mining transformed the grounds of #WentworthWoodhouse . @brushingboots.bsky.social reveals the clash between government need and aristocratic estates. 🎧 Listen : pod.fo/e/3a194b #History #Podcast #otd

This week's Great Estates is on Revesby, Lincolnshire where I learnt how to herd deer, went stoat spotting and almost fell into the reservoir! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/2d2198f...

People say that stuff is iconic and it almost never is but perhaps the Crooked House in Lavenham actually is. A very civilised Monday morning indeed

On the Other Place MrMemory (who isn't on here?) points out that Hilary Benn leaving government means that Andy Burnham will be the first Labour PM who has not, so far, had a Benn in his cabinet. Of course, there's still time, given that Lord Stansgate remains in the Lords, ironically

Andy Burnham definitely going back to the 1970s by appointing a man called Healey as chancellor

Ach, really sad news with which to start the week. RIP. --> BBC broadcaster Edward Stourton dies aged 68 www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...

This week's Great Estates is on the outrageously beautiful Broughton Castle where I had a gorgeous day with Lord Saye and Sele – or rather, Martin Fiennes as he prefers to be known. On new money, old money and why (just) being posh doesn't cut it in the big house www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/3a00d20...

Slightly inevitably I wrote about George Cottrell, Nigel Farage and the aristocracy for the Spectator spectator.com/article/the-...

Huh, so David Ross has a peerage at last I see. He's changed his tune. This here from my 2021 interview with him where he was brusque, if not rude – and his PR told me not to mention the fact that we were meeting behind a big black door with '10' on the front www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/...

The thing about Kemi Badenoch's purge of any Conservative member to the left of Enoch Powell is that she's so close to a Tory revival if she only realised it. All she needs to do is to lead a party that is not obviously mad and wait for Reform to crumble, but she can't even manage that

I am too tired and weary to fully articulate what a dumb own goal this is, truly. Not for the first time, I miss Cameron

Slightly inevitably I wrote about George Cottrell, Nigel Farage and the aristocracy for the Spectator spectator.com/article/the-...

This was a really moving interview. We're enormously proud of Peter at Queen Mary. He's been a lone voice for a particular kind of virtue in public life: not as something we admire in ourselves, but as something we practice towards others - and especially our opponents. And he really embodies that.

One of my favourite things is when I accidentally put Classic FM on and it happens to be playing music I know backwards from orchestra and it just happened now, with Vaughan Williams’ Folk Song Suite while I am walking in the cover crops with my dogs, and nothing has ever felt more appropriate

Journalists who use LLMs to do the actual writing should not be in journalism. What's the point? Quit and let someone who likes writing do it

This week's Great Estates is a biiiiig one: it's Badminton and my third duke of 2026, the Duke of Beaufort. I've been trying to get him to give me an interview since 2018 and it's finally happened! It was a pleasure and yet again I must say how much I love my job www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/35a37eb...

This week's Great Estates is a biiiiig one: it's Badminton and my third duke of 2026, the Duke of Beaufort. I've been trying to get him to give me an interview since 2018 and it's finally happened! It was a pleasure and yet again I must say how much I love my job www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/35a37eb...

It was SO lovely to be mentioned on last week's @countrylifemag.bsky.social highlights pod! 'When it comes to knowing what there is to know about the British aristocracy, there is no one better working in the business than Eleanor Doughty' My ep from March here! www.countrylife.co.uk/podcast/the-...

Today I did a speech and gave out prizes at my old school’s prize giving and it was so emotional and nice and bizarre. Feel ancient but so touched to have been asked, and wrote about it a bit here www.instagram.com/p/DaDjTnrtNl...

This week’s Great Estates is on a house that for centuries was kept so private that when it was listed, inspectors had to do it from the road as Lord Sandys wouldn’t let them in. It’s Ombersley and it’s for sale! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/1308383...

This week’s Great Estates is on a house that for centuries was kept so private that when it was listed, inspectors had to do it from the road as Lord Sandys wouldn’t let them in. It’s Ombersley and it’s for sale! www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/1308383...

There’s truly nothing (so pleasing?) like using your own book as the main source of prep for an interview

Is the aristocracy dead like Daphne Guinness suggests? Not on your nelly! But perhaps we’re calling them the wrong thing… by me in today’s Telegraph, ft a good amount of eye-rolling from peers and Lord Balfour's defence of hedgies buying up in the Cotswolds www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/e89fdd9...

Is the aristocracy dead like Daphne Guinness suggests? Not on your nelly! But perhaps we’re calling them the wrong thing… by me in today’s Telegraph, ft a good amount of eye-rolling from peers and Lord Balfour's defence of hedgies buying up in the Cotswolds www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/e89fdd9...

Had an absolutely excellent time last night at an utterly gorgeous dinner to celebrate the paperback of my book Heirs and Graces being published but I can't get away from the fact that I did my liquid eyeliner freehand on the circle line standing up en route and it was the best I've ever done it!!

It’s…. paperback day!!! HEIRS AND GRACES is now available to buy in all forms including with this absolutely gorgeous cover by the magic team at Hutchinson c/o Slim Aarons’ 1960s mastery ⭐️ www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...