ROSEMARY HILLS

CATALOGUE

RECORDING

SUMMARY

BORN: London, 1908

LIVED: Alcombe, Dulverton

RECORDING MADE: 1999

RECORDING LENGTH: 2 hours 20 minutes

Rosemary Hills is the eldest daughter of the Earl of Cromer, Lord Chamberlain to King George V. The family used to come for holidays to Alcombe, where her parents had bought a house. She much preferred the country to London and spent a year at Cannington Farm Institute, where she trapped mice under her bed in a bowl of water.

She played squash and mountaineered and went climbing in Canada with Noel Odell, who remained a lifelong friend. She met her husband, John, a schoolmaster at Eton, climbing in the Lake District. They were married at Dunster, the Alcombe Guides, which she had founded some years earlier, forming a guard of honour.

She went back to Canada, reluctantly, when she and her three young children were evacuated in the war. She felt she was running away. They returned two years later. She moved to a flat at Hanover Court in Dulverton in 1997. She says it is perfect for her.

Lady Hills died in April 2004.

Photograph by Mark J. Rattenbury