From The Radio Times, Thursday 8th July 1971
VISCOUNT WEYMOUTH ECCENTRIC?
HIS BUTLER DOESN’T THINK SO
Timeri Murari visited the Marquis of Bath’s Longleat Estate and met its unconventional heir, Viscount Weymouth (Alexander Thynne) – writer, philosopher and painter of huge murals, ahead of the broadcast of a BBC tv documentary The Thynne Blue Line, on BBC2, Sunday 11th July 1971. Timeri Murari wrote:
Viscount Weymouth’s butler, a man gentled by years of service in great households, hesitantly voices an opinion on his master’s murals. “They’re okay,’ he says. “Except sometimes he does get a bit . . . . er . . . . over enthusiastic. Especially with those sex ones.’
The faint disapproval lingers on as we drive through the vast estate of the Viscount’s father, the Marquis of Bath. The car tops a rise. Down in the valley, looking almost like a mirage that has been conjured up to fit one’s idea of a Lord’s manor, is Weymouth’s home. To add somewhat to the fantasy there is a pride of lions to the right and charabancs to the left.
The private entrance to the manor is through a discreet side door which is well hidden by a forest of signs directing tourists to the kitchens and the game parks. Once inside, your eyes are bombarded by huge, brightly coloured murals. The butler pauses and then points out a small silvered-framed photograph of a beautiful woman holding a child. “That’s Lady Weymouth, sir,’ he explains; not adding that she is also the French actress Anna Gael.
After leading me through a labyrinth of rooms to the study he retires discreetly. The Viscount sits at a desk, writing letters. The room, in contrast with the rest of the manor, is distinctly homely; toys and newspapers scattered around him on the floor. He is a tall, slim man, bearded, and with hair that is long enough to be plaited into a pony-tail. To add to this unconventionality, he is wearing Levi’s and a short Afghan jacket.
His pride and joy is not the manor but his murals. They average about ten to twenty feet in height and width, and cover every conceivable space on the walls. They range from the abstract to the erotic. His latest work, and they normally take two years to complete, is to be created in three consecutive rooms. The furniture and fittings have been removed and the walls and ceilings are covered with charcoal sketches. The theme is ‘Day, Night and Heaven.’ The conflict between the modern murals and the old manor is somewhat disturbing. Moving from a dim gallery crowded with a collection of 16th-century Dutch masters into a room of dazzling murals is a slightly hallucinatory experience.
‘Every one of us has contributed in some way to this place,’ the Viscount says. ‘My contribution is the murals. My son will do something different to the interior of the place.’ He hesitates a moment and looks around casually. ‘This must sound terrible, but I have no interest in any of the things in the house. I haven’t bothered to have them evaluated.’ The ‘things,’ apart from the Dutch masters are priceless-looking objets d’art.
Back in the study, the Viscount admits he had a conventional upbringing. Governesses, private school, public school, the Guards and Oxford. What made him different was his father’s liberalism. The Viscount’s own contribution to eccentricity, apart from the murals, was his much-publicised anti-marriage to a model a few years back.
‘I consider myself mainly a painter and a writer,’ he says. ‘I learnt art in Paris at one of those schools where you pay a pound an hour and everybody is welcome. My writings revolve mainly around my philosophy which I’ve been revising since I was 14. At first, people used to call me a dilettante when I said I paint and write. But I don’t think it will happen once they’ve seen my works and know how much time and trouble I’ve taken. I haven’t sold any but I intend to open the house when I’ve completed the murals. I suppose I’ll earn my living from the takings.’
Apart from his writing and painting, the Viscount helps his father run Longleat.
From somewhere deep in the building a gong is struck and the Viscount leads me into the dining room where the butler is waiting. As I was warned, he eats his breakfast at lunch-time and the meal consists of kippers and poached egg washed down with red wine.
On the way back to the station the butler considers my question. ‘Well, sir, it depends on what you call eccentric. I wouldn’t think Lord Weymouth is. Why, once I was in service with a gentleman who hadn’t left his house in 30 years, Had no idea what was happening in the world.’