Lord Dudley’s immense wealth, generated largely by his industrial interests in the West Midlands, enabled his family to live an extraordinary opulent life. It funded the creation of not only the Court itself but also the ornate gardens designed by William Andrews Nesfield, the leading landscape designer of his day. An army of staff was needed to service the first and second Earl’s families further swollen by the lavish house parties attended by the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIIth) and his rich circle of aristocrats and gentry.

An interesting insight into the personality of the First Earl came from a book entitled ‘My Recollections’ by Countess Cardigan and Lancastre – published in 1909: “….William Ward was a pleasant man, but he had extraordinary ideas of how to treat a wife…… poor Constance was not very tactful and not accommodating. Her husband worshipped the beautiful; he had selected his wife partly on account of her beauty, and treated her like some lovely slave he had bought. He had a strange, almost barbaric passion for precious stones, and he bought quantities of them and lavished them on his wife, who appeared at great entertainments literally ablaze with diamonds.

What pleased Lord Ward more than anything was to make Constance put on all her jewels for his special benefit when they were alone. He would admire her thus for hours, delighting in her lovely unclothed figure, and contrasting the sheen of her ropes of pearls with her delicate skin, as she sat on a black satin covered couch.’