EMILY PRESCOTT: The ‘erotic, exotic and eccentric’ teenage years of Rose Hanbury detailed in a new book
She always looks prim and proper when spotted at Royal events with her pals and former neighbours the Prince and Princess of Wales – but it seems Rose Hanbury has a wild side.
The Marchioness of Cholmondeley certainly doesn’t appear averse to a spot of hedonism in socialite Violet Naylor-Leyland’s new book, Rare Birds True Style, which sees Rose and her sister Marina snapped in some ‘moody’ shots at their grand childhood manor, Wembury House in Devon.
The book details the ‘erotic, exotic and eccentric’ parties there, describing rooms adorned with suspender belts doubled up as curtain pelmets, and it has a bizarre picture of a stuffed sea turtle in the downstairs loo.
Rose recalls how during her teenage years her parents transformed the grand home for parties: ‘Mum turned the basement into a nightclub for us, painting the whole place herself and hanging Moroccan lanterns and suzanis from the walls. It felt a bit like an opium den.’ A food-themed party at the house saw Rose – whose grandmother was a bridesmaid at the late Queen’s 1947 wedding to the Duke of Edinburgh – opting for a ‘Catch of the Day’ outfit with fish netting and an octopus on her head.
She always looks prim and proper when spotted at Royal events with her pals and former neighbours the Prince and Princess of Wales – but it seems Rose Hanbury has a wild side
Violet Naylor-Leyland in her latex deep sea diving Bindy dress made bespoke by eco-designing innovators Vin + Omi. Bindy
Another do, themed as ‘dangerous’, featured a game using a loo roll doused in petrol and set alight used as a hockey ball.
This was banned after someone’s hair caught fire.
Violet, who explores the homes of other socialites such as Lady Martha Sitwell and jewellery designer Sabine Getty in the book, has had her own risqué moments. She turned up to a Christmas drinks at Hatchards, the oldest bookshop in London, in a latex ‘deep-sea diving’ dress which, she tells me, was designed by her pals’ brand Vin + Omi. The firm has previously created clothes using nettles from King Charles’s garden.