Lunch with Sir Bernard and Lady de Hoghton

One of my colleagues, our school's head varsity soccer coach, organizes a soccer-playing tour of the United Kingdom for the boys every couple of years or so, generally over our Thanksgiving break. This was one of the 'on' years, and I went along as a second chaperone. We flew into Edinburgh, visited the city's landmarks, toured St Andrews (both the university and the Old Course), and played Stewart's Melville College, all before taking the train along the route of the old Flying Scotsman south to London, where the boys played Eton (on Thanksgiving Day) and Charterhouse.

Generally, of course, I stuck close to my colleague and the team, but on the Saturday morning of our trip they were all scheduled to take a bicycle tour of the site of the coming Olympic games (we were staying in a brand-spanking-new Holiday Inn Express within spitting distance of the Olympic site in the east end of London--so far east, in fact, that the Prime Meridian ran between us and the nearest Underground stop, so that we became quite blase about moving from one hemisphere to the other).

I guessed (correctly, as it turned out) that this cycling tour would be a bit more exercise than I was ready for, and so I arranged, instead, to travel to the other side of London and meet up with the H.A.A.'s patron, Sir Richard Bernard Cuthbert de Hoghton, 14th Baronet Hoghton, of Hoghton Tower, and Walton le Dale, County Lancaster. We had met some years ago, at Hoghton Tower itself, and might have done so again, but as it happened Sir Bernard and Lady de Hoghton came south to London at just the same time the team did. Getting to their pied-à-terre turned out to be more of a project than I had expected. It ought to have been a fairly simple matter--a cross-city ride, but with only one transfer. The line I meant to transfer to was out of commission, though, and while there was a substitute bus service in place, I couldn't make sense of the guard's directions (though they were certainly meant to be helpful), and ended up catching a cab. (Needless to say, this was a bit pricier than the bus, but I was beginning to doubt that I would make it to my lunch appointment before supper time.) True to his craft, the cabbie brought me straight to the de Hoghton doorstep, and on schedule, to boot.

Lady de Hoghton (the former Rosanna Burratti, and a physician, though I think she has retired from her practice) greeted me warmly at the door, explaining that Sir Bernard was on the top floor of the town house and would be down in moment, as indeed he was. We sat and chatted for a while in the beautifully appointed living room, which, like the dining room next to it, gave pride of place to large format prints by their son Thomas de Hoghton, a professional photographer (you can see some of his work here).  The original plan had been to go out to eat (how many chances does one get to buy lunch for the head of the family?), but eventually Lady de Hoghton excused herself to go out to the kitchen and throw something together.

Sir Bernard took me on a quick tour of the three floors of the home, which he bought as a young man first starting off in London. The architecture was interesting, but we were soon deep in conversation about the former print newsletter of the Association, loyally sent out for years by Allan Houghton, of Massachusetts, and of a whole range of related topics, including recent improvements at the Tower and the possibility of opening one or two rooms there for paying guests, perhaps particularly members of the H.A.A.  (It turns out that this set of rooms, in the Irishman's Tower, is now available: see details here .) Someplace in there, we also discussed the American-Civil-War-era baronet, Sir Charles, who invested somewhat heavily in the Confederate cause.

Lady de Hoghton called us to lunch, which turned out to be pasta Alfredo, a green salad, pork loin with sage leaves, a very nice bottle of wine, and miniature mince pies, of which I ate more than my diet would actually have allowed for. We had a great conversation about Italy (which I have yet to visit), and I got to meet Thomas, who stopped by home on his way, I think, to the studio.  By the time we had eaten the last of the pies (and, I think, finished the bottle), it was time for me to be on my way to join the team to see a professional football game (Crystal Palace hosting Milwall). After snapping a picture of my host and hostess (above), I was off to find a cab to go right the way back across London to the football stadium, Selhurst Park.

It was a good game, and the afternoon was topped off by a reception for local alumni of our school at the historic Gray's Inn, at which the boys were honored guests: but the highlight of my day was definitely lunch with our English cousins.