Family tree

The Present Earl's grandfather had come up with idea of the family tree. He had selected a large apple tree in the gardens and, working with the family bible and the head gardener, had assigned branches to relatives and ancestors - marking them with copper tags engraved with the appropriate names. The twigs and branches that were not needed were pruned away by the gardener. Even at the time, the tree wasn't particularly accurate - the then Earl's grasp of genealogy wasn't strong and the tree didn't always have branches in the right places. And in the intervening years, the tree had branched and forked whilst the family had grown and the two actions were rarely in line.

In the 1950s, Lady Helen had sawn off an entire section of the tree after a row with a cousin. The two factions had since settled their differences but the change to the family tree was irreversible.