This is in the Drawing Room. It is described as A 19th century round dial French clock in black marble case; with variegated beige marble decoration and bronze lion mask handles surmounted by bronze bust of William Shakespeare. Signed Berillon. It is dated in the Charlecote catalogue as just 19Century. I assume it was bought because of the bust of Shakespeare but we really know nothing about it. This will be a common theme throughout this Shakespeare talk. Charlecote owes a lot to Shakespeare, Times had been hard in the nineteenth century and Charlecote was particularly hard hit by the agricultural depression (1873-1896) caused by cheap American grain flooding the market. We are seeing something similar now with Chinese steel decimating our home-grown steel industry. Henry Spencer was reduced to selling the greatest books and paintings from the house. Henry died in 1890 and his widow Christina moved back to Scotland with her three daughters, Ada, Joyce and Constance. Charlecote was let out to tenants. In 1892 Ada married into the Scottish Fairfax family. Sir Henry Ramsey Fairfax marked his marriage to Ada by adding Lucy to his string of names. He was a baronet so there was a Sir at Charlecote again, With the death of Henry and Ada the Baronetcy passed to their eldest son Montgomery. He was not much concerned with Charlecote preferring to live in Kenya leaving his brother Brian in charge at Charlecote. He and Brian negotiated with the National Trust to take over the running of the house. The Trust was not much interested as there was not to be an endowment fund to support the acquisition. Furthermore the interior of the house had been much altered in faux-Elizabethan style which was much frowned upon. What finally sealed the deal was that the house came with a complete set of contents including a fine carriage collection and the Shakespeare connection. Without Shakespeare the trust may never have acquired the house in 1946.

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