We’re now housesitting in Bournemouth with weather so wonderful it’s sometimes hard to focus on work, but we’re doing our best finishing up “Laurent and The Beast”,which is coming out on the 29th of April – so only 10 days left! Yikes.

In our downtime we’ve visited an amazing mansion in the area, Kingston Lacy and it turned out to not only be amazing, but it also held a fascinating story of William John Bankes who made the house into the glorious building it is now.

Wikipedia:

“Bankes was eventually exiled from his home in England in 1841 due to homosexual indiscretions which led him to flee seeking refuge after being caught in compromising circumstances with a guardsman in Green Park in London. In that day and age, sodomy was considered a grave crime in England and carried with it the death penalty – the last executions in England for sodomy had occurred only six years earlier, in 1835.

Even though he was unable to return to Kingston Lacy, he continued to collect from abroad, sending his collections to be displayed in his beloved home. It is believed that he secretly visited Kingston Lacy to admire his home and collections before his death in Venice.”

Despite his exile and his homosexuality, he wrote to his family all the time, sent them furniture, designs and artwork he collected in Italy, and seemed to be in great contact with his sister. I like to think that with Italy being much more permissive in terms of homosexuality, he must have had a much happier time there than he would have had in England