Exposing the literary history of England's most famous houses

Renishaw Hall near Sheffield, , which has just been included on a new literary trail. Picture Scott Merrylees.

With the literary history of some of England's most famous houses being brought to light, Stephen McClarence visits Renishaw Hall, home of the famously bookish Sitwell family. Pictures by Scott Merrylees.

Towards the end of the tour, Christine Beevers points to a cardboard box on the table in front of us. “Someone got in touch about that a month ago and said we might like it,” she says, and takes the lid off. Inside, looking rather forlorn, is a stuffed Little Owl. Little but literary, as most things are here at Renishaw Hall, on the Sheffield-Derbyshire border.

The 400-year-old house, with its glorious gardens, was the family home of the formidable Sitwell trio of high-born, high-flown writers – Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell – who took London by storm in the Twenties. In its own park (and its own world) up a long drive near the village of Eckington, it will be hosting the first of a new series of literary tours tomorrow.

So the owl’s arrival, in its cardboard coffin, turns out to be very timely. “It was a spoof prize which the Sitwells sent to the person who had written the dullest literary work of the year,” says Christine, Renishaw’s archivist, who will be leading the tours.

Christine Beevers with the photograph of Edith Sitwell and megaphone. Picture Scott Merrylees.

She unfolds a slip of paper tucked in beside the bird. On it is the name Charles Sewter, an art historian and editor of the prestigious Burlington Magazine. And there’s a poem:

“The candidate the critics rate

Nor fish nor flesh nor fowl

Upon a date receives a crate

Osbert Sitwell's First World War letter. Picture Scott Merrylees.

Of desiccated owl.”

Isn’t that so typical of the Sitwell siblings’ – indeed the whole family’s – famed eccentricity, I suggest? Christine demurs: “I’d say they were independent-minded. I’d go for quirkiness instead of eccentricity.”

Well, up to a point... The first time I visited Renishaw, about 20 years ago, I was taken round by its then owner, Sir Reresby Sitwell, son of Sacheverell. In a voice as rich as vintage port, he described how his “auntie” (Dame Edith) made “absolutely lethal Martinis”. Puffing a fat cigar, he buffered round an exhibition of pictures by John Piper, an old family friend (“Look at this... Touch of Picasso, Blue Period, Cubism and so on...”).

He was expecting a telephone call from a man in London he wanted me to talk to. “Why don’t you go and look at the garden?” he said. “I’ll ring you when he rings and you can scamper back to the house.”