Gibside Hall is almost 400 years old. Each generation that lived there modified it to suit their tastes. From 1860 onwards, the Hall was left to decay, in the 1950s, the roof tiles, floors and ceilings were removed for tax purposes. What remains now is a mere shell, that was stabilised in 2002 and ongoing preservation work has taken place since to halt the decaying process.

Sources:

Bowes Strathmore, M. E. (1793). The confessions of the Countess of Strathmore : written by herself. Carefully copied from the original, lodged in Doctor’s Commons. London: printed for W. Locke.

Moore, W. (2009). Wedlock: how Georgian Britain’s worst husband met his match. London: Phoenix.

Parker, D. (2006). The trampled wife : the scandalous life of Mary Eleanor Bowes. Stroud: Sutton.

Wills, M. (1995). Gibside and the Bowes family. Chichester: Phillimore for Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Mine is not a plight for all womankind, but a personal plight, in support of only my own rights, not as a woman, but as a human being. As was instilled by my father when I was young of age, I have a duty to myself above all others and to the cultivation of my own improvement. My education at his hands was that of a boy’s, I read the classics and Latin; privileges usually forbidden to my sex, for men prefer that women be kept ignorant. My mother remained, largely absent, I never durst open my heart to her .

By the time of my father’s death when I was 12, his ideals had been thoroughly instilled in me, and my hopes for marriage were but naive hopes of finding another whom loved me as he did. I should have known better than to place any stock in a mere dream.

At just 14 my keen intellect was identified and I was invited to join the Bluestockings, a club for women to discuss the arts; literature, music and drama, away from the disapproving eyes of men. We would take it in turns to play hostess at dinner parties, whilst sharing our passions and celebrating cultural accomplishments of women past and present. It was a relief and a joy to be surrounded by others who were eager to announce their opinions without fear of being scolded or worse, laughed at. At Bluestockings we often found ourselves victims of mockery from men, who poked fun at our ambitions and our interests; I quickly learned that an intelligent female is often considered nothing but eccentric.

My exposure to the written word was unrestricted. I often encountered writings of a pornographic nature, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure and Ranger’s magazine taught me quickly that carnal encounters between man and woman were not entirely exclusive to the wedding bed. My innocent and accomplished flirtations fuelled gossip, gossip that I rather encouraged, I admit,  in hope that time and reason would show the rumours to be false. My flirtatious nature was routed in girlishness, mischievousness and vanity . Never in lust.

I was never a sickly child, and remain in my adult years a pillar of strength, but have been increasingly prone to violent hysteric fits, which have only worsened with each child I have birthed. Both in health and in looks I would become exceedingly weakened, I would feel an intense accumulation of tension and could, on occasion, intercept such attacks with a strong camomile tea or by plunging my hands in to ice cold water. I’m sure my malady would be considered neither divine, nor sinister, if only it were understood. I cannot confess to being a natural mother, perhaps due to my innate fear that having children makes a man like his wife less.

The very thought of being alone with my first husband the Earl of Strathmore made me physically sick, I was tempted by my partiality to Scotsmen and took George Gray as a lover. Throughout my indiscretions with George Gray I aborted three pregnancies. On the first occasion I ordered Grey to fetch me a quack medicine he had happened upon through hearsay, which he duly obtained. It was a black inky kind of medicine with a strong taste of copper. The solution worked, I used it again on a second occasion. On the next pregnancy the black ink failed me and in desperation to commit this crime for a third time I swiftly drank an emetic with a large glass of brandy and vast amounts of pepper which caused me to vomit violently and successfully induced another miscarriage. My crime was not for wishing to take control of my body, but rather my foolishness in so repeatedly allowing my late night conversations with Gray to dissolve into lust.

Soon after the death of Strathmore I was pregnant, for the fourth and final time, by my lover. I tried once more the quack solution, I tried the emetic, the brandy and the pepper, but this child would not die. I conceded, out of desperation to allow Gray to take me in marriage. The marriage never came to be, for I swiftly became involved with my second husband Andrew Robinson Stoney, he took the bastard child as his own.