The Cliveden Set were a 1930s right-wing, upper class group of prominent individuals politically influential in pre-World War II Britain, who were in the circle of Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor.

Ironically, according to Carroll Quigley, the Cliveden Set had been strongly anti-German before and during World War I.

The actual beliefs and influence of the Cliveden Set is a matter of some dispute, though most historians of the period in the late 20th century came to consider the Cliveden Set allegations to be exaggerated.

For instance, Christopher Sykes, in a sympathetic 1972 biography of Nancy Astor, argues that the entire story about the so-called Cliveden Set was an ideologically motivated fabrication by Claud Cockburn that came to be generally accepted by a public looking for scapegoats for British pre-war appeasement of Adolf Hitler.

* The Cliveden Set: Portrait of an Exclusive Fraternity Norman Rose ( 2000 )

*" A Reevaluation of Cockburn's Cliveden Set ", online academic essay, John Taylor, San Francisco State University ( 1999 )

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* Rose, Norman, The Cliveden Set: Portrait of an Exclusive Fraternity, London, 2000.

His son David, who became owner and editor of The Observer in 1948, never forgave Claud Cockburn and his newssheet The Week for attacks on the " Cliveden Set ".

His 3-volume Whitehall Diary threw much light on politics " behind the scenes ", including the Irish Treaty, the 1926 General Strike, the meetings between Lloyd George and Adolf Hitler, the Cliveden Set, and so on.

During World War I Cliveden was a hospital for Canadian soldiers.

The Cliveden set was seen variously as the prime mover for appeasement, or a society that secretly ran the nation, or even as a beachhead for Nazism in Britain.

" started out as part of Alfred, a masque about Alfred the Great co-written by James Thomson and David Mallet which was first performed at Cliveden, country house of Frederick, Prince of Wales.

His last major remodelling work was Cliveden again for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland, here he built a new central block after the previous building was burnt down ( 1850 – 51 ), rising to three floors in the Italianate Style, the lowest floor had arch headed windows, the upper two floors have giant Ionic pilasters, he also designed the parterre's below the house, little of Barry's interiors survived later remodeling.

The name comes from Cliveden, the stately home in Buckinghamshire, which was then Astor's country residence.

Nancy Astor, née Nancy Langhorne, was her mother's sister and Grenfell often visited her at Astor's home, Cliveden.

As he left no legitimate children, the title became extinct, and his great estate was completely dissipated ; of the enormous mansion he constructed at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire only the arcaded terrace remains.

Cliveden was vacant and vulnerable.

Chew sold Cliveden to Blair McClenahan because he was unable to afford the extensive repairs necessary after the Battle of Germantown.

Agutter remained single until 1989, when at an arts festival in Bath, Somerset, she met Johan Tham, a Swedish hotelier who was a director of Cliveden Hotel in Buckinghamshire.

As home of Nancy Astor, the house was the meeting place of the Cliveden set of the 1920s and 1930s-a group of political intellectuals.

In 1984-86 the exterior of the mansion was overhauled and a new lead roof installed by the National Trust, while interior repairs were carried out by Cliveden Hotel.

It shows that in 1237 the land was owned by Geoffrey de Clyveden and by 1300 it had passed to his son, William, who owned fisheries and mills along the Cliveden Reach stretch of the Thames and at nearby Hedsor.

It was on this impressively high but exposed site that Buckingham chose to build the first Cliveden house.

Although the Duke's intention was to use Cliveden as a " hunting box " he later housed his mistress Anna, Countess of Shrewsbury there.

( an aria by the English composer Thomas Arne ) was first performed in public in the cliff-side amphitheatre at Cliveden on 1 August 1740.

It is believed that it was at Cliveden in 1751 that the Prince received a blow to the chest from a cricket ball while playing in the grounds ; the resulting infection proved fatal.

After his death, Frederick's family left Cliveden and the estate was once again used by Orkney's heirs until the night of 20 May 1795 when the house caught fire and burned down.

The Duke was prompt in commissioning the architect Charles Barry to rebuild Cliveden in the style of an Italianate villa.

In 1893 the estate was purchased by a very wealthy American, William Waldorf Astor ( later 1st Lord Astor ), who made sweeping alterations to the gardens and the interior of the house, but lived at Cliveden as a recluse after the early death of his wife.

The heyday of entertaining at Cliveden was between the two World Wars when the Astors held regular weekend house parties.

The hotel was listed on the London Stock Exchange for a period of time in the 1990s ( as Cliveden Plc ).

In a 1937 article in The Week, Cockburn coined the term Cliveden set to describe what he alleged to be an upper-class pro-German group that excerised influence behind the scenes.

Garden hotels, famous for their gardens before they became hotels, include Gravetye Manor, the home of garden designer William Robinson, and Cliveden, designed by Charles Barry with a rose garden by Geoffrey Jellicoe.

A statue at Cliveden, overlooking 42 inscribed stones dedicated to the dead of World War I. Edgar Bertram Mackennal | Sir Bertram MacKennal's figure represents Canada with the head reputedly modeled by Lady Astor.

In July 1961, Ward introduced Keeler to John Profumo, the British Secretary of State for War, at a pool party at Cliveden, the Buckinghamshire mansion owned by Lord Astor.

Hadley is the father of five children: Thomas, Toni, and Mackenzie by his first wife, Leonie Lawson, and Zara ( born 21 December 2006 ) by Alison Evers, whom he married in July 2009 at Cliveden House, Berkshire.

In July 1961 Ward held a pool party at Cliveden, the Buckinghamshire mansion owned by Viscount Astor.

Cliveden stands on the site of a house built in 1666 designed by architect William Winde as the home of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham.

The details are recorded in a document compiled by William Waldorf Astor in 1894 called " The Historical Descent of Cliveden ".

Cliveden was then purchased in February 2012 by Richard and Ian Livingstone, owners of London & Regional Properties, ( also the new owners of the next door 220 acre estate called dropmore park ) who placed it under the management of Andrew Stembridge from Chewton Glen.

The original Cliveden maze, commissioned by Lord Astor in 1894, has undergone major restoration after having lain overgrown and inaccessible since the 1950s.

The earliest known garden buildings at Cliveden were both designed by Giacomo Leoni for Lord Orkney ; the Blenheim Pavilion ( c. 1727 ) was built to commemorate Orkney's victory as a general at the Battle of Blenheim.

* The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden by Carroll Quigley

Octagonal Garden Temple, Cliveden by Giacomo Leoni