The Mitchell Scholarship

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Photos here.

The 2019 class of Mitchell Scholars concluded their year as the guests of Lord Iveagh at the Elveden Estate about 45 minutes west of Cambridge in England.  https://www.elveden.com

 

Edward Guinness, the 4th Earl of Iveagh, spent the day with Scholars, Mitchell alum Sarah Bufkin (currently a Clarendon Scholar at Oxford), and Alliance president Trina Vargo. Lord Iveagh and his team gave an interesting and informative tour of the 22,000-acre estate.

The estate includes farmland, 1,500 acres of heathland, and 4,000 acres of forest. They sell 10,000 Christmas trees a year and livestock include sheep, cattle, pigs and free-range poultry. Crops grown, largely for the domestic market, include barley, malt, onion, potatoes. If you’ve had chips (fries) at McDonalds in England, those potatoes very likely came from Elveden.

 

Accompanying the group throughout the day was plant and soil scientist Philip Draycott. Paul Dickinson gave a talk about conversation, sustainability and the appliance of science to best practice. The group learned about water storage, irrigation, and observed the onion grading process.

 Paul Thomas explained Elveden’s “instant hedging” business. The group had lunch at Elveden Inn and then met game keeper Rob Minty to learn about the estate’s 1,400 deer, pheasants and other game.

 There was a visit to Elveden Church and Elveden Hall, which has a storied past. It began as the home of Maharajah Duleep Singh, the last Maharajah of the Sikh Empire, who was exiled to England in 1849, after being removed from his kingdom by the British East India Company. The estate was later bought by Edward Cecil Guinness who, in 1919, was created Earl of Iveagh and Viscount of Elveden. 

 During WWI, Elveden was acquired by the War Office and used for secret training for the new Mark 1 tank. Elveden Hall was also used during WWII as the headquarters for General Curtis LeMay’s US Air Force’s Third Air Division. More recently, it has been used as a film set, including for LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER, Stanley Kubrick’s EYES WIDE SHUT, Ridley Scott's ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD, and the Netflix series, The Crown.

 The day ended with a visit to the Elveden Courtyard, the estate’s lovely shop and restaurant.