Eleanor Doughty
@brushingboots.bsky.social
Writer on the aristocracy, big houses, old money; author of HEIRS AND GRACES, a history of the modern aristocracy, which is out now! Views my own, yours for £. [email protected]
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305/heirs-and-graces-by-doughty-eleanor/
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305/heirs-and-graces-by-doughty-eleanor/
Pinned
It’s tough being a toff — the decline of the British aristocracy
In Heirs and Graces, Eleanor Doughty documents how aristocrats are surviving in an age of inheritance tax, from turning their estates into safari parks to working for B&Q
www.thetimes.com
‘This is a marvellous book’
Heirs and Graces is reviewed in today’s Times and I am a little emotional (again).
www.thetimes.com/article/68f2...
Heirs and Graces is reviewed in today’s Times and I am a little emotional (again).
www.thetimes.com/article/68f2...
There’s nothing like believing your train is 20 minutes later than it actually is until the moment you get in the car, 15 minutes away, to give a bit of vim to a Wednesday morning
January 28, 2026 at 10:03 AM
There’s nothing like believing your train is 20 minutes later than it actually is until the moment you get in the car, 15 minutes away, to give a bit of vim to a Wednesday morning
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
This week’s Great Estates is on Hutton-in-the-Forest and Lord Inglewood who was definitely one of my most thoughtful interviewees of 2025, a good egg who talks sense on a lot of things – particularly on Lords reform, on which he is utterly clear-eyed. Do read it!
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ce233e6...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ce233e6...
‘You can have the house or be rich – but rarely both’
Great Estates: Lord Inglewood is steadfast in keeping his home ‘deliberately low-key’
www.telegraph.co.uk
January 19, 2026 at 9:15 AM
This week’s Great Estates is on Hutton-in-the-Forest and Lord Inglewood who was definitely one of my most thoughtful interviewees of 2025, a good egg who talks sense on a lot of things – particularly on Lords reform, on which he is utterly clear-eyed. Do read it!
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ce233e6...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ce233e6...
This week’s Great Estates is on Hutton-in-the-Forest and Lord Inglewood who was definitely one of my most thoughtful interviewees of 2025, a good egg who talks sense on a lot of things – particularly on Lords reform, on which he is utterly clear-eyed. Do read it!
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ce233e6...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ce233e6...
‘You can have the house or be rich – but rarely both’
Great Estates: Lord Inglewood is steadfast in keeping his home ‘deliberately low-key’
www.telegraph.co.uk
January 19, 2026 at 9:15 AM
This week’s Great Estates is on Hutton-in-the-Forest and Lord Inglewood who was definitely one of my most thoughtful interviewees of 2025, a good egg who talks sense on a lot of things – particularly on Lords reform, on which he is utterly clear-eyed. Do read it!
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ce233e6...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ce233e6...
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
I am super excited to say that my book HEIRS AND GRACES will be published in paperback on 11 June and here is the cover! I can only hope to be as cool as Donough Inchiquin! It remains available to buy in hardback/audio/ebook and you can pre-order the paperback now!
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
January 14, 2026 at 9:24 AM
I am super excited to say that my book HEIRS AND GRACES will be published in paperback on 11 June and here is the cover! I can only hope to be as cool as Donough Inchiquin! It remains available to buy in hardback/audio/ebook and you can pre-order the paperback now!
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
I am super excited to say that my book HEIRS AND GRACES will be published in paperback on 11 June and here is the cover! I can only hope to be as cool as Donough Inchiquin! It remains available to buy in hardback/audio/ebook and you can pre-order the paperback now!
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
January 14, 2026 at 9:24 AM
I am super excited to say that my book HEIRS AND GRACES will be published in paperback on 11 June and here is the cover! I can only hope to be as cool as Donough Inchiquin! It remains available to buy in hardback/audio/ebook and you can pre-order the paperback now!
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
Enjoying my quarterly-ish browse of FixMyStreet and particularly the effort that one near-ish neighbour has gone to in reporting a sunken manhole lid with five photographs featuring a giant spirit level and a metal tape measure. Hell hath no fury like a man with a noisy metal plate outside his house
January 7, 2026 at 9:36 PM
Enjoying my quarterly-ish browse of FixMyStreet and particularly the effort that one near-ish neighbour has gone to in reporting a sunken manhole lid with five photographs featuring a giant spirit level and a metal tape measure. Hell hath no fury like a man with a noisy metal plate outside his house
ICYMI my profile of England’s newest cardinal, Timothy Radcliffe, which I don’t mind saying that I am rather pleased with – on women in the Catholic Church, his life as a Dominican and how despite it he fell in love with a woman, on ministering to men with HIV and much more
Ahead of this week’s extraordinary consistory at the Vatican, I went to Oxford to interview ‘don’t call me Cardinal’ Timothy Radcliffe: on women’s ordination, on ministering to those with HIV, what the Pope is like and whether he voted for himself at conclave
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6ea3425...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6ea3425...
Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe: No one can simply say ‘I’m a woman’ – our biology is fundamental
The leading Catholic on trans rights, an astonishing meeting with Pope Francis and what happened inside the secret conclave to elect Leo XIV
www.telegraph.co.uk
January 7, 2026 at 9:36 AM
ICYMI my profile of England’s newest cardinal, Timothy Radcliffe, which I don’t mind saying that I am rather pleased with – on women in the Catholic Church, his life as a Dominican and how despite it he fell in love with a woman, on ministering to men with HIV and much more
Ahead of this week’s extraordinary consistory at the Vatican, I went to Oxford to interview ‘don’t call me Cardinal’ Timothy Radcliffe: on women’s ordination, on ministering to those with HIV, what the Pope is like and whether he voted for himself at conclave
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6ea3425...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6ea3425...
Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe: No one can simply say ‘I’m a woman’ – our biology is fundamental
The leading Catholic on trans rights, an astonishing meeting with Pope Francis and what happened inside the secret conclave to elect Leo XIV
www.telegraph.co.uk
January 6, 2026 at 11:51 AM
Ahead of this week’s extraordinary consistory at the Vatican, I went to Oxford to interview ‘don’t call me Cardinal’ Timothy Radcliffe: on women’s ordination, on ministering to those with HIV, what the Pope is like and whether he voted for himself at conclave
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6ea3425...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6ea3425...
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
What's so sad about when people get totally het up about one single line in a piece is that they miss the genuinely amazing bits. I'm feeling generous so this is one of them – the 3rd Lord Leconfield talking to the late Pamela Leconfield. Just outstanding. God bless the aristocracy, eh
January 5, 2026 at 9:19 AM
What's so sad about when people get totally het up about one single line in a piece is that they miss the genuinely amazing bits. I'm feeling generous so this is one of them – the 3rd Lord Leconfield talking to the late Pamela Leconfield. Just outstanding. God bless the aristocracy, eh
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
A lot of people in the comments – which I have been reading with an amused smile and responding to, killing their fury with abject kindness – seem to have got totally the wrong end of the stick about him but oh well!! My job is so great!
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
‘I inherited 17,000 acres at 24. Rich people like me should pay tax and not complain’
Great Estates: Lord Egremont lives in one wing of his ancestral home. The National Trust runs the rest
www.telegraph.co.uk
January 5, 2026 at 9:19 AM
A lot of people in the comments – which I have been reading with an amused smile and responding to, killing their fury with abject kindness – seem to have got totally the wrong end of the stick about him but oh well!! My job is so great!
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
It's a happy new year and a very happy new Great Estates which this week is at mighty Petworth with the wonderful Max Egremont who I had a lovely time with despite Thameslink's best efforts. Yes he wants to pay more tax! No he's not virtue signalling! He's great!
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
‘I inherited 17,000 acres at 24. Rich people like me should pay tax and not complain’
Great Estates: Lord Egremont lives in one wing of his ancestral home. The National Trust runs the rest
www.telegraph.co.uk
January 5, 2026 at 9:19 AM
It's a happy new year and a very happy new Great Estates which this week is at mighty Petworth with the wonderful Max Egremont who I had a lovely time with despite Thameslink's best efforts. Yes he wants to pay more tax! No he's not virtue signalling! He's great!
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
It's a happy new year and a very happy new Great Estates which this week is at mighty Petworth with the wonderful Max Egremont who I had a lovely time with despite Thameslink's best efforts. Yes he wants to pay more tax! No he's not virtue signalling! He's great!
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
‘I inherited 17,000 acres at 24. Rich people like me should pay tax and not complain’
Great Estates: Lord Egremont lives in one wing of his ancestral home. The National Trust runs the rest
www.telegraph.co.uk
January 5, 2026 at 9:19 AM
It's a happy new year and a very happy new Great Estates which this week is at mighty Petworth with the wonderful Max Egremont who I had a lovely time with despite Thameslink's best efforts. Yes he wants to pay more tax! No he's not virtue signalling! He's great!
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/fd78733...
Am I the grinch who stole New Year's Eve or is it weird to be hearing fireworks at SEVEN THIRTY? Isn't the whole point that they go off at midnight and then for about 15 minutes and no more?
December 31, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Am I the grinch who stole New Year's Eve or is it weird to be hearing fireworks at SEVEN THIRTY? Isn't the whole point that they go off at midnight and then for about 15 minutes and no more?
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
And if you are an editor who wants someone who genuinely knows about Lords reform today and/or the general state of the upper class and is in touch with hundreds of peers, including – as in this piece – the biggest landowners in the country, then I’m your girl. There is always more to say about it!
December 28, 2025 at 9:02 AM
And if you are an editor who wants someone who genuinely knows about Lords reform today and/or the general state of the upper class and is in touch with hundreds of peers, including – as in this piece – the biggest landowners in the country, then I’m your girl. There is always more to say about it!
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
In case you somehow missed it, I have recently written a whole book, HEIRS AND GRACES, on the modern aristocracy which you can buy in all good or bad bookshops! There is a whole chapter on the Lords in it and it is also very good, if I may so! All links here
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
Heirs and Graces
There are fewer than 5000 people who can genuinely claim to be members of the British aristocracy, and yet they loom large in the popular consciousness. We're fascinated by their houses and estates, t...
www.penguin.co.uk
December 28, 2025 at 9:02 AM
In case you somehow missed it, I have recently written a whole book, HEIRS AND GRACES, on the modern aristocracy which you can buy in all good or bad bookshops! There is a whole chapter on the Lords in it and it is also very good, if I may so! All links here
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
www.penguin.co.uk/books/453305...
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
I couldn’t resist including a reference to Wogan Milford here, the only Communist member of the Lords ever. After he made his maiden speech denouncing his own position Attlee stood up and said that it was ‘an advantage of hereditary representation’ that a Communist could sit in the Lords at all
December 28, 2025 at 9:02 AM
I couldn’t resist including a reference to Wogan Milford here, the only Communist member of the Lords ever. After he made his maiden speech denouncing his own position Attlee stood up and said that it was ‘an advantage of hereditary representation’ that a Communist could sit in the Lords at all
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
The headline is rightly a bit glib but there is a serious point to be made about political independence and the role that the working hereds today have. The peer in this piece that said that people who defend heredity slowly go mad is right, but I’ll take that over modern prime ministerial patronage
December 28, 2025 at 9:02 AM
The headline is rightly a bit glib but there is a serious point to be made about political independence and the role that the working hereds today have. The peer in this piece that said that people who defend heredity slowly go mad is right, but I’ll take that over modern prime ministerial patronage
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
I have written a lovely long essay on the end of the ‘hereds’ in the Lords for today’s Sunday Times which I am rather pleased with – and which I don’t mind saying is well worth reading!
www.thetimes.com/article/a280...
www.thetimes.com/article/a280...
Will Britain lose something when hereditary peers exit the Lords?
I’ve spoken to hundreds of peers as the final ‘hereds’ await their fate. Their answers provided food for thought over Labour’s promise to abolish them
www.thetimes.com
December 28, 2025 at 9:02 AM
I have written a lovely long essay on the end of the ‘hereds’ in the Lords for today’s Sunday Times which I am rather pleased with – and which I don’t mind saying is well worth reading!
www.thetimes.com/article/a280...
www.thetimes.com/article/a280...
I have written a lovely long essay on the end of the ‘hereds’ in the Lords for today’s Sunday Times which I am rather pleased with – and which I don’t mind saying is well worth reading!
www.thetimes.com/article/a280...
www.thetimes.com/article/a280...
Will Britain lose something when hereditary peers exit the Lords?
I’ve spoken to hundreds of peers as the final ‘hereds’ await their fate. Their answers provided food for thought over Labour’s promise to abolish them
www.thetimes.com
December 28, 2025 at 9:02 AM
I have written a lovely long essay on the end of the ‘hereds’ in the Lords for today’s Sunday Times which I am rather pleased with – and which I don’t mind saying is well worth reading!
www.thetimes.com/article/a280...
www.thetimes.com/article/a280...
Am I the only person to ask for a copy of the biography of Robert Birley for Christmas? I hope so, otherwise there’s another equally sad person in this world
December 26, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Am I the only person to ask for a copy of the biography of Robert Birley for Christmas? I hope so, otherwise there’s another equally sad person in this world
Today is my 33rd birthday and I have just realised that I’ve had my top on inside out all day
December 23, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Today is my 33rd birthday and I have just realised that I’ve had my top on inside out all day
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
I have written some great things this year but this is one of my favourites. For this week’s special Christmas Great Estates, I spent the day at a Trappist monastery – a historic house, yes, but one home to 14 monks with a brewery attached. It was totally amazing
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b5820b4...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b5820b4...
‘We ditched dairy farming for beer brewing to keep our monastery going’
Great Estates: Mount Saint Bernard Abbey doesn’t pay for itself, despite the monks’ simple way of life
www.telegraph.co.uk
December 22, 2025 at 9:10 AM
I have written some great things this year but this is one of my favourites. For this week’s special Christmas Great Estates, I spent the day at a Trappist monastery – a historic house, yes, but one home to 14 monks with a brewery attached. It was totally amazing
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b5820b4...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b5820b4...
I have written some great things this year but this is one of my favourites. For this week’s special Christmas Great Estates, I spent the day at a Trappist monastery – a historic house, yes, but one home to 14 monks with a brewery attached. It was totally amazing
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b5820b4...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b5820b4...
‘We ditched dairy farming for beer brewing to keep our monastery going’
Great Estates: Mount Saint Bernard Abbey doesn’t pay for itself, despite the monks’ simple way of life
www.telegraph.co.uk
December 22, 2025 at 9:10 AM
I have written some great things this year but this is one of my favourites. For this week’s special Christmas Great Estates, I spent the day at a Trappist monastery – a historic house, yes, but one home to 14 monks with a brewery attached. It was totally amazing
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b5820b4...
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b5820b4...
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
Have you enjoyed this week’s Patreon episode? 🎧✨ Support the author, and me 📚❤️ by buying a copy of "Heirs and Graces" by @brushingboots.bsky.social through the History Rage Bookshop!
📖 Buy the book: uk.bookshop.org/a/10...
Listen now 🎧 www.patreon.com/post...
#History #Podcast
📖 Buy the book: uk.bookshop.org/a/10...
Listen now 🎧 www.patreon.com/post...
#History #Podcast
December 21, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Have you enjoyed this week’s Patreon episode? 🎧✨ Support the author, and me 📚❤️ by buying a copy of "Heirs and Graces" by @brushingboots.bsky.social through the History Rage Bookshop!
📖 Buy the book: uk.bookshop.org/a/10...
Listen now 🎧 www.patreon.com/post...
#History #Podcast
📖 Buy the book: uk.bookshop.org/a/10...
Listen now 🎧 www.patreon.com/post...
#History #Podcast
Reposted by Eleanor Doughty
🚨 THIS WEEK TO PATREON AND APPLE SUBS🚨Wentworth’s destruction wasn’t just architectural — it broke a family. 💔🏰
Hear @brushingboots.bsky.social recount this gripping story on History Rage.
🎧 www.patreon.com/post...
#HistoryRage #WentworthWoodhouse #Podcast
Hear @brushingboots.bsky.social recount this gripping story on History Rage.
🎧 www.patreon.com/post...
#HistoryRage #WentworthWoodhouse #Podcast
December 21, 2025 at 12:00 PM
🚨 THIS WEEK TO PATREON AND APPLE SUBS🚨Wentworth’s destruction wasn’t just architectural — it broke a family. 💔🏰
Hear @brushingboots.bsky.social recount this gripping story on History Rage.
🎧 www.patreon.com/post...
#HistoryRage #WentworthWoodhouse #Podcast
Hear @brushingboots.bsky.social recount this gripping story on History Rage.
🎧 www.patreon.com/post...
#HistoryRage #WentworthWoodhouse #Podcast