This woman is Jane Percy, the Duchess of Northumberland. Real royal historians know that her son, George Percy, was in Pippa Middleton’s crosshairs back in the day, but the Percy family rejected the lesser Wisteria Sister. At least the aristocracy has always understood what the Middletons are, even if the Windsors did not. As it turns out, the Duchess of Northumberland is somewhat famous for turning around Alnwick Castle. When her husband became the 12th Duke of Northumberland, Jane decided to take over the castle’s gardens and grounds. Over the course of three decades, she created hugely popular gardens and playgrounds which are extremely important to the local economy. She’s an author, and she’s currently promoting her first novel, which sounds more like a book about fairies for kids, but whatever. The point is that the Telegraph interviewed Jane Percy, referred to her as “the Duchess” throughout their article, and then they printed Jane’s bitchy comments about how she never even uses her titles, unlike some duchesses.
A 21st century pleasure garden was the last thing locals expected from the new Duchess of Northumberland when she moved with her husband, the 12th Duke, to Alnwick Castle in 1995. She had no gardening experience, for a start, and there was no template for her to work with; the 26-acre gardens, laid out in 1750 by Capability Brown, were ploughed up during Second World War and all that remained was an empty field surrounded by walls.
Yet the Duchess, now 67, was determined to create a successful visitor attraction. “I had a lot of criticism: people saying, ‘Who does she think she is; this is the Duchess’s vanity project.’ But I knew that if I built it they’d understand.”
The Duchess’s original design for the derelict site, which was turned into a formal masterplan by Belgian landscape architects, Jacques and Peter Wirtz, was so grand in scale that the Alnwick Garden is still unfinished. It’s Britain’s most ambitious new garden since the war: the Duchess has upped the ante over the years, adding the world’s largest treehouse and, most recently, Lilidorei, an enormous fairytale playground, home to Elfwin Drin, the world’s largest play structure.
While she says she and the Duke are still best friends after nearly 50 years of marriage, she doesn’t expect he’ll read Amanita, her first novel, which follows a young girl’s journey into the dark realm of Lilidorei.
Her children and seven grandchildren are lucky, she says, as they’ll never have to worry about her when she’s old. “I’ll just keep working,” she says. She already has plans for a colouring book and book two in the Legends of Lilidorei series, under her pen name of Jane Northumberland. “Unlike other duchesses who put their names everywhere, I’m not using my title,” she says. “I’d say it could be detrimental as one or two duchesses haven’t really helped the cause lately.”
Deep sigh… so you admit that you can use your title as a surname? The Duchess of Northumberland becomes Jane Northumberland for commercial ventures? Almost like an adopted family name in the same vein as “Meghan Sussex”? It’s an admission that Jane doesn’t want to publish under her actual married surname, Percy, because no one would know who the hell “Jane Percy” is and it has no connection to the Northumberland duchy??? And it’s pretty rich to be referred to as “the Duchess” in all of her ventures, interviews and press, then spitefully bitch about another duchess simply using her married name and title in the same way?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
