CELIA Bonner calls it a real life Cinderella story - a wealthy 19th century Earl with a rather impressive country pile marries a circus performer with Gypsy blood.

But there was no happy ending for the couple, whose romance ignited what we would now consider appalling prejudice among the aristocracy of Cheshire.

The end result was that George, the 7th Earl of Stamford, and Kitty Cocks, his wife, never lived at the family seat of Dunham Massey Hall, and went into self-imposed exile.

His lordship and his new wife lived at the Stamford's second home in Staffordshire, and the Earl only returned home occasionally, to hunt and shoot.

Celia is directing The Bareback Countess, a play that tells a story that sounds like it has come straight out of the pages of a romantic novel.

This wasn't the first time the Earl had married "beneath him." As a student at Cambridge University he married the daughter of his boot maker. She died young and about a year later, he met and married somebody who had earned her living as a bareback horse rider in a circus.

The couple met and married in London in 1855 and, approximately a year later, the Earl decided to bring her back to Dunham, which is when the play begins.

"In preparation for their arrival they'd had some of the rooms re-decorated in the latest fashion and they were really planning to come and live at Dunham. But all the aristocracy of Cheshire were so rude to the Countess, because she had been a bareback rider in a circus. Her mother and her brother had both been in prison and her sister had a daughter who was born in the workhouse," she says.

One example of the prejudice the Earl and Kitty had to suffer came at Knutsford Races when the ladies actually turned their backs on her, using their parasols to actually shield themselves from a woman they regarded as the lowest of the low.

Another incident took place at Bowdon where the minister and the church warden refused to let the church bells be rung to announce their arrival.

How the Earl met his future spouse is unclear, but Celia thinks it might have been their mutual love of horses that brought them together. His lordship would later hold the office of the Master of the Quorn Hunt in Rutland.

The couple were to find a much warmer welcome in Staffordshire and they would spend the rest of the married life there. George died in 1883 and the snobbery they had endured during their married life even extended to the Earl's death, with the then Altrincham council actually refusing to pass on a message of condolence to his widow. Kitty would live until 1905, a year before the Stamford family returned to Dunham Massey Hall.

Why the Earl and Countess encountered more open minds in Staffordshire is unclear, but Kitty was a hugely popular figure. Celia says the play, which is being performed by Dunham's history team, paints a sympathetic portrait of a couple who were treated so badly.

From the play Kitty seems to have been very warm hearted and that goes with what is said about her, that she was

The play also reveals the dark secret of Kitty Cocks - which I have no intention of giving away here.

* Dunham Massey Hall presents The Bareback Countess on July 15-16. This is a promenade production, which means the scenes are performed at various locations - if you have mobility problems it might be a good idea to check with the box office for access. Performances take place from 12 noon, and the box office is on 0161 941 1025.