THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

HENRY CHAPLIN'S LOVE AFFAIR

Text copyright Valerie Martin 1999

Life begins with horses in Findon. In the village there is a row of cottages adjacent to the High Street that owes its very existence to a racehorse named Hermit who in the nineteenth century was once trained in the village.

I think this is a story of winners and losers and begins in 1863 when the young Henry Chaplin, whose family home was in Blankney, Lincolnshire, came down from Oxford to London. Following his days at Oxford, he was a close friend of Queen Victoria's son, Bertie, the Prince of Wales, (later to become King Edward VII when he was sixty years old in 1901).

Henry Chaplin (later Lord) had strong connections with Findon. He knew Henry Padwick the moneylender who had built Downs House in Stable Lane, Findon, and he was very well acquainted with the Marquis of Hastings whose horses were in training with John Day who was installed as trainer at Downs House.

During Chaplin's socialising in London he became aware of a charming young lady named Lady Florence Paget. During the summer months of 1864 he asked her to marry him. She was daughter of the Marquis of Anglesey, and was heralded as a beauty of the mid-Victorian period. The only flaw in the appearance of this belle of English aristocracy was the unevenness of her teeth. A small price to pay for the stunning, slight, and diminutive celebrity who was, in fact, known by society as the pocket Venus. The wedding was the talk of the London elite and was scheduled to be the social event of 1864 when the exclusive wedding invitations were delivered. Snobbery was the only word to describe it.

Chaplin realised that he was not the only young man arrested by Florence's loveliness and fascinated by her fragile slender figure. Having accomplished his engagement he thought he had beaten everyone else to the post. He knew she had been once strongly attracted to the Marquis of Hastings, but he thought that affair was now behind her, but could he be sure?

Wedding gifts were showered on the young lovers. Shortly before the big day Chaplin took his bride-to-be to Lincolnshire to their future home at Blankney Hall. On the evening of 15th July 1864 they were seen together at the opera. All seemed to be going well, but was it?  If you want to find out, read The Marquis of Hasting's Liaison.