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Cliveden Literary Festival Cliveden sits on a beautiful stretch of the Thames and each autumn, writers, politicians and public figures gather for its annual literary festival. Sarah Turner finds ideas, history and gossip flowing as easily as the river below
Cliveden has always been a place where ideas have space to develop and grow. Overseeing all the sessions in the Great Hall is John Singer’s Sargent’s portrait of Nancy Astor. Born in Virginia in 1879, she was the first woman to take a seat as an MP in the British parliament and, as Cliveden’s chatelaine, brought together figures as diverse as Winston Churchill, Henry James, Edith Wharton and FD Roosevelt at her house parties. Debate is part of Cliveden’s DNA. Choosing speakers at a literary festival is also not unlike creating
a house party guest list; there has to be balance – light and shade, humour as well as literary heft. At the 2021 weekend, Candace Owens took aim at Biden’s America, Conrad Black traded tales of prison and present-day politicians, while General David Petraeus detailed the highs and lows of his 37-year career in the American military. Fearless and frank, at times the festival felt like a multi-layered state-of-the-nation discussion. Like all the best literary salons, though, there were also joyous
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amounts of gossip. Lady Antonia Fraser mentioned that in the 1960s she’d been lent a cottage at Cliveden and that, as a result, she could say that she’d swum with Stephen Ward and Christine Keeler during the Profumo scandal, while Sasha Swire and Michael Gove brought presentday pep to a discussion about political memoirs. In parterres, rose gardens and across vistas, Cliveden is studded with 19th-century statues and follies, each one different yet contributing to a harmonious
