Joanne Major

She tumbled from her horse and the press loved the idea of a fallen woman, falling. Overnight, Kitty became a sensation.

An ancient building, made of timber and plaster with a flat tiled roof, the Cheesecake House stood in the park from at least the reign of Charles II (and perhaps even earlier). To gain access to the front door, you crossed the small stream which ran in front of the building via a rudimentary wooden bridge. Samuel Pepys was a visitor; in 1669 he took his wife. They sat outside in their coach and ate ‘a cheesecake and drank a tankard of milk.’

In a ditch, between St Albans and Colney Heath in Hertfordshire, lay a poor starving girl, half-naked. Two bakers travelling along the road discovered and rescued her. They took her to an alehouse near the turnpike where the local surgeon and apothecary, Mr Humphries, was sent for. Under his care, the girl recovered.

Etienne Daly has been researching the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle for a decade now. In that time, he has uncovered some fascinating facts to add to those already known.

Dido was the natural daughter of a former African enslaved woman and Sir John Lindsay. She was brought up at Kenwood House in Hampstead, London alongside her cousin, Lady Elizabeth Murray, and also at Lincoln's Inn Fields and Bloomsbury. The girls' great-uncle William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield owned the estate. You may have seen the film about Dido’s life, Belle (2013).