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

Text copyright Valerie Martin 1999

Lady Florence Cecilia Paget, daughter of Sir Henry Paget, 2nd Marquess of Anglesey and Henrietta Maria Bagot, was born in August 1842. She became the belle of English aristocracy. Many stories have circulated regarding her elopement and after the passing of time and I have found it difficult to extract fact from fiction.

The bare bones of the story are that she was engaged to Henry Chaplin and visited his ancestral home at Blankney prior to their wedding day. She then accompanied him to the opera on the evening of the 15th July 1864. The tale that scandalised Victorian society and brought Findon into the scene begins to unfold on the following day. On the 16th July 1864 she announced that she needed to do some shopping for her trousseau. She left the St. George's Hotel in London to go to the fashionable departmental store of Marshall and Snelgrove in Oxford Street. She was alone in the carriage, which was unusual because young ladies of her class did not usually travel on their own.

The fashionable Florence, who was always generous with her favours, sailed through the store with exquisite charm to all she passed. The delightful symmetry of her tiny figure disappeared round the counters. No one guessed she was bent on a secret assignation. With a quick incline of her head and a glance in either direction, she gave a charming smile and vanished from view — into the embracing arms of her lover. This was the young buck of Victorian society, the Marquis of Hastings, who was waiting for her. She entered a waiting cab and was driven down Bond Street to Hanover Square and arrived at St George's Church by midday.

Henry Weysford Charles Plantagenet, bachelor, Marquis of Hastings, the fourth and destined to be the last Marquis of Hastings, married Florence Cecilia Paget, spinster, that day. There were no members of her family present — which was hardly surprising as they had all been invited to her wedding to Henry Chaplin. The blushing bride left the church as the new Marchioness of Hastings. The wedding party went to St. James's Place where the reception was held. Here Florence wrote to explain her action to her jilted fiancé, Harry Chaplin.

The couple then hurried away to catch a train to take them to Castle Donington. It had been a torrid and bizarre affair from beginning to end. An infamous liaison to go down in Victorian Findon history when it became apparent that her husband and her ex-fiancé were to became rivals over a racehorse trained on the Findon Downs.