Talk:De Havilland Aircraft Museum

Copy of misplaced comment
--82.0.131.34 (talk) 06:31, 12 February 2018 (UTC) de Havilland Aircraft Museum article includes

Nell Gwynne's cottage was the centre of a silk worm farm, which supplied the silk for the Queen's wedding and Coronation robes.

This is incorrect. Lullington Hall supplied the silk. Material was woven in Fife and Essex.


 * An IP posted the above in the wrong forum. They cite no source for their information, but it may be worth investigating. --Worldbruce (talk) 05:28, 18 February 2018 (UTC)


 * The IP is correct and the article is wrong. Zoe Dyke, wife of Sir Oliver Hart-Dyke of Lullingstone Castle in Kent, set up her silk factory at Lullingstone in the Thirties. Queen Mary visited, and then the factory made silk for George VI's Coronation robes. In 1944 Zoe and Oliver divorced, but she still ran the silk factory at Lullingstone and made the silk for Princess Elizabeth's wedding dress in 1947 and her Coronation robes in 1953. In the mid-1950s, presumably due to friction with Oliver and his second wife, Zoe moved the factory to Ayot House at Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire. See https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Lullingstone_Silk_Farm And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoe_Dyke Zoe died in 1975 and Robert Goodden, of Compton House at Sherborne, Dorset, bought the firm and moved the factory to his estate. It was still called the Lullingstone Silk Farm and, due to the royal connection, it produced the silk for the wedding dresses of Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and Sarah Ferguson in 1986. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/30/style/home-grown-silk-for-a-royal-wedding.html

The misunderstanding arises because of the last paragraph in The Story of Salisbury Hall by Sir George Bellew, third edition, 1971, the official guide book for the house under Walter Goldsmith's ownership, when the place was open to the public. Sir George writes (page unnumbered): 'Nell Gwynne's cottage, almost derelict and in danger of collapse ten years ago, has now been rehabilitated. For a time recently it was used for a purpose which would have surprised but doubtless greatly pleased pretty witty Nell, for it became the show place of a famous silk-producing "factory", whose silk is of a quality renowned the world over. It is enough to say of it that Her Majesty the Queen's wedding dress, and Her Majesty's Coronation robes, were both of silk produced there.' Sir George is referring, in the Sixties or early Seventies (note: 'Third Edition...Limited number...July, 1971' appears at the foot of the page), to Zoe's use of the alleged Nell Gwynne's cottage at Salisbury Hall as a showroom, presumably when the silk farm was based not far away at Ayot St Lawrence from the 1950s on. He is not saying that the silk for Princess Elizabeth's wedding dress was made there, because of course it wasn't, it was made at Lullingstone. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:14, 12 September 2018 (UTC)