The Stately Coals of England

The Earl of Fitzwilliam's secretary and his estate agent spluttered in angry despair over the "incredible, appalling despoliation." Already 450 acres of the estate surrounding Wentworth Woodhouse, ancestral Fitzwilliams seat in Yorkshire, had been chewed by huge shovels scooping out subsurface coal. A farm, a woodland, a parkland had been dug up. Soon a stud farm, paddocks, fish pond, tree nursery, stately avenues and timbered slopes would also go. The place was a "complete mess."

So far the mansion was unharmed. Longer than a city block, built in 1746, it is a fabulous place. It has 1,000 windows, 365 rooms. In days gone by it was not unusual for 200 guests to sit to a dinner served on gold plate. Queen Victoria, a guest, remarked that it was too extravagant for her. Other royal guests included King George V, King Edward VIII, King George VI. The house was so vast that, the story goes, guests were given packets of wafers to strew along the corridors showing the way back to their rooms. A guest once rang the servant's bell on Saturday; it was Monday before his man appeared. During one Doncaster race week, a butler walked 54 miles in four days, merely attending his household duties.

The London Daily Express dropped a few sentimental tears last fortnight over the "muddy scar" that had been made on the grounds by bulldozers and steam shovels, "advancing like a serpent of destruction, leaving a hideous trail. ..." The Ministry of Works and Planning was not touched. Coldly, it said that in times like these, the main thing was to get the coal. They were getting it, at the rate of 25,000 tons a week.

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