A ROYAL snub, rejected by society, and an article in the New York Times – the union of Dunham Massey’s 7th Earl and his circus equestrienne wife caused quite a stir in the strait-laced Victorian era.

Now Dunham Massey is giving visitors the chance to make up their own minds about the wedded couple, with their lives thrust under the spotlight in the spectacular new exhibition ‘Dunham's Lost Years – A Victorian Tale of Love and Abandonment’.

The exhibition opens this Saturday, February 27, to coincide with Dunham’s new season and follows on from the hugely successful World War One-themed ‘Sanctuary from the Trenches’.

It will run for two years and look at love, courtship and marriage through the eyes of the Victorians.

Katie Taylor, Dunham’s house manager, said: “Our focus is the story of George Harry, 7th Earl of Stamford & Warrington –young, incredibly wealthy and very eligible – and his marriage to Catharine Cox, circus equestrienne - glamorous, beautiful – and in the eyes of Cheshire society, totally unsuitable for such a match.

“Catharine was from the working classes and her marriage to George Harry defied the rigid conventions which governed Victorian polite society. So society meted out their punishment.

“The young couple were publically rejected, ostracised and humiliated whenever they were out and about in the Cheshire community.

“Invitations to attend social engagements in the county were no forthcoming and requests to attend similar events at Dunham went unanswered.”

Queen Victoria refused to sit in a box next to Lady Catharine at an opera, an incident which made the New York Times, and her peers branded her a ‘strumpet’ after publicly shaming her at the Knutsford Races.

After being repeatedly humiliated, the couple’s patience gave way and they abandoned Dunham in the 1850s, retreating to their Enville estate, where they were made welcome by the local Staffordshire community.

The estate remained ‘Earl-less’ for some 50 years, until the 9th Earl of Stamford and his family returned to the house in 1906. In the years since, the family and the National Trust have been committed to buying back parts of the Dunham collection which left with George Harry and Catharine.

“As love – and its consequences – form a pivotal part of ‘Dunham’s Lost Years’, we hope that visitors will reflect on some of their own stories of love or forbidden love, exploring whether customs or attitudes around the subject have really changed since Victorian times,” added Katie.

For more information on the exhibition, including opening times, visit nationaltrust.org.uk/dunham-massey.